Agenda item

To consider a report by the Strategic Planning Team Manager (copy attached) seeking members’ views on the latest version of the Corporate Risk Register.

11.00 a.m. – 11.30 a.m.

Councillor Julian Thompson-Hill, Lead Member for Finance, Corporate Plan and Performance introduced the report (previously circulated) on the June 2016 review of the Council’s Corporate Risk Register.

The Lead Member detailed the main issues highlighted within the report and explained why the risk categorisation of some had been amended and others had been removed or scaled down to Service risks rather than corporate risks.

In response to members’ questions the Lead Members present and Chief Executive advised that –

·         with regards to the result of the recent Referendum on European Union (EU) membership the Council had asked the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) to undertake a county by county and region by region analysis of the impact of the decision to withdraw from the EU.  This would be an extensive piece of work, and due to the UK Government uncertainties at present, it was not anticipated that a clear picture would emerge of the actual impact on local government until the autumn at the earliest.  As EU structural funds had virtually been agreed until 2020, when the new structural funds were due to be available, it was anticipated that the impact on projects already agreed in Denbighshire would be minimal

·         with regards to Corporate Risk DCC032 relating to local government reorganisation it was now clear that local government would not be reorganised in the near future, as the Welsh Government had confirmed that next year’s local authority elections would be for a 5 year council term, up to 2022.  Nevertheless, there was still a risk in relation to the financial sustainability of local government going forward

·         the risk relating to alternative service models had recently come to the fore with the conclusions of the Estyn inspection of the North Wales regional school improvement service, GwE.  Officers from Denbighshire had submitted proposals on how GwE could be reformed for the benefit of Denbighshire pupils, although there was no certainty on whether these proposals would be supported by other local education authorities who were stakeholders in GwE.  If Denbighshire was not happy with the way forward with the regional service it would give notice to withdraw.  No decision had yet been taken with respect of this, but a meeting  was scheduled with Welsh Government officials during the summer to discuss how the model could be improved

·         DCC017 – this risk had now been removed from the Corporate Risk Register and would in future be managed at a Service level as all the strategic IT implementation work relating to migration to Outlook and the telephony system had been completed.  Issues relating to elected members’ IT would be discussed at a joint IT and Democratic Services Working Group due to be established during the summer to discuss potential IT solutions and requirements for elected members post the 2017 local authority elections

·         DCC016 – this risk relating to the impact of welfare reforms having a more significant impact that originally anticipated had been removed from the Corporate Risk Register.  Nevertheless, once Universal Credit (UC) was introduced, a new risk relating to UC may be included on the Risk Register.  The Cutting Our Cloth Task and Finish Group had examined the impact of the withdrawal of the Welfare Rights Unit (WRU) and the transfer of service provision to the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) and concluded that the impact had not been worse than originally anticipated.  It was due to examine the matter again at its meeting at the end of July as it was eager to see what additional services/advice the CAB had been able to provide.

Rhyl Members advised that the Town Council had been approach by Rhyl Benefits Advice Shop for funding to secure its future following the end of this year.  The basis of their case for funding was that they had secured £4m worth of benefits, etc. for citizens in the Rhyl area.  The Chief Executive advised elected members to apply caution when approached with requests for substantial funding.  He cited the WRU/CAB as an example of where losing a provider did not equate to residents losing out on a service or losing out financially.

At the conclusion of the discussion the committee –

RESOLVED that, subject to the above observations, to note the deletions, additions and amendments to the Corporate Risk Register and receive them accordingly.