Agenda item

To consider the assurance given by each service area, and overall for 2021/22, it can be concluded that the management of the Council’s internal control environment was satisfactory. 

25.1          Attention was drawn to the report of the Head of Corporate Services, circulated at Pages No. 52-85, which provided management assurance statements for each service area.  Members were asked to consider the statements and the conclusion that, overall, for 2021/22, the management of the Council’s internal control environment was satisfactory.

25.2          The Head of Corporate Services explained that, as was the case last year due to the lack of internal audit activity, management assurance statements had been provided by each Head of Service to give assurance to Members and the external auditors, when issuing their value for money opinion, that the internal control environment was still being managed despite recovering from the pandemic.  There were some questions with a partial response but it would be unrealistic to expect that all of the Council’s services operated 100% effectively all of the time.  The assurance statements would be passed to Grant Thornton to inform the external audit opinion which would be presented to the Committee in March 2023.

25.3          With regard to the assurance statement from the Head of Development Services, a Member drew attention to Page No. 72, No. 7 which stated that the Interim Development Manager had advised that the Council had been issuing planning consents for five years but the legislation governed that it should be for three years - unless there was a specific reason for a longer period - and she asked what the impact of this was, how many applications this applied to and whether people had been notified.  In response, the Head of Development Services advised that this could not be reversed once planning permission had been granted and it would require a significant amount of Officer resource to look into the number of applications this applied to; however, she confirmed that the issue had now been corrected and planning permissions were generally being issued for the standard three years.  In relation to No. 6 which dealt with partnerships, a Member expressed the view that an effective governance structure was vital and it was concerning if there was no agreed governance arrangement in place in relation to Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).  The Head of Development Services advised that there was governance in place but this was not a formalised, joint arrangement with Cheltenham Borough and Gloucester City Councils; however, all of the items in the Infrastructure Funding Statement were transport-related projects so any bids which came in had to go to the County Council.  Notwithstanding this, more money was coming into the CIL pot so it recognised that it was necessary to formalise the arrangement and work was ongoing with One Legal in relation to this.  The Head of Corporate Services advised that this had been identified as a Significant Governance Issue within the Annual Governance Statement which would be considered under the next Agenda Item.

25.4          It was

RESOLVED            That the management assurance statements provided by each service area and the conclusion that, overall, for 2021/22, the management of the Council’s internal control environment was satisfactory be NOTED.