Agenda item

The Director of Legal and Governance and Director of Finance, Assets and Information services will submit a joint report on the final Annual Governance Statement for 2014/15 and seeking approval to refer it to Council for consideration and adoption.

Further to minute no 19 of the previous meeting held on the 22^nd July, 2015, the Committee considered a joint report of the Director of Legal and Governance and Director of Finance, Assets and Information Services on the final Annual Governance Statement for 2014/15, requesting the Committee to refer it to the Council for consideration and adoption as part of the process for approving the 2014/15Statement of Accounts.  A copy of the Statement was appended to the report.

In the ensuing discussion, reference was made to the following:

·         the final Statement was substantially the same as the draft submitted to the previous meeting and provided an assurance that the Authority had appropriate procedures and processes in place

·         Reference was made to the action being taken by the Authority following the Casey report into corporate governance which would ensure that all the necessary procedures and processes were in place.  The Director of Finance, Assets and Information Services refereed to the role of the Senior Management Team in this respect.  It was also suggested that consideration be given to the involvement of Voluntary Agencies in any review

·         The Service Director Governance and Member Support briefly explained the arrangements the Authority had in place to ensure that Members and Officers standards of behaviour was appropriate and was maintained.  In this respect reference was made to the Codes of Member and Employee conduct, although if fraud or other criminality, for example, was suspected, this would be referred for investigation through the normal arrangements.

RECOMMENDED TO FULL COUNCIL ON THE 24^th SEPTEMBER: that the final Annual Governance Statement 2014/15 be approved and adopted.