At its meeting on 24 July 2019 the Audit and Governance Committee considered its annual report for 2018/19. An update on the outcome of that meeting will be provided at the Council meeting.

29.1           The Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee for 2018/19 indicated that the report before Members, circulated at Pages No. 257-271, demonstrated that the role of the Committee was not only to look at finance which she felt was a common misconception. With that in mind, in order to raise the profile of the Committee, the name had been changed to include governance and the membership had been expanded from seven to nine. The Audit and Governance Committee received a variety of reports from different sources to give assurance that systems, procedures and policies were operating as they should be. Sources of assurance included the work of the Council’s internal audit team, reports from the Council’s external auditors, Gloucestershire Counter Fraud Unit and individual reports from Officers on governance related issues such as health and safety. During the year, the Committee had received a new risk register and she looked forward to Members getting ‘under the skin’ of those risks to gain assurance that they were being effectively managed. She explained that she was no longer the Chair of the Committee, but took the opportunity to update on a key outcome from the last meeting at which the Committee had been pleased to hear the external auditors had signed off the statement of accounts without any significant issues arising and were very complimentary of the work of the Council’s finance team. The auditors had also been satisfied that the Council had proper arrangements for securing economy, efficiency and effectiveness in its use of resources as well as referring to the implementation of a savings programme being approved within the Medium Term Financial Strategy in line with a previous audit recommendation.

29.2           Accordingly, it was

                  RESOLVED          That the Audit and Governance Committee Annual Report                                 2018/19 be APPROVED.

To approve the Audit and Governance Committee Annual Report 2018/19.

18.1           Attention was drawn to the report of the Head of Corporate Services, circulated at Pages No. 229-242, which attached, at Appendix 1, the Audit Committee Annual Report 2018/19 for approval.

18.2           The Head of Corporate Services explained that the Terms of Reference of the Audit and Governance Committee required the production of an annual report in order to demonstrate the broad range of issues that the Committee had considered and reviewed throughout the year.  Following approval of the report, it would be presented to Council by the Chair of the Committee.  It was subsequently

RESOLVED          That the Audit and Governance Committee Annual Report 2018/19 be APPROVED.