Issue - meetings

The Principal Accountant presented this report that invited the Committee to approve the draft Risk Management Strategy, which was unchanged from last year, but requires annual approval.

Minor amendments

It was suggested that the terms Gross Risk and Net Risk should be used exclusively instead of also referring to Inherent Risk and Current risk in paragraph 13 of the report and Appendix C.

It was requested that the term “Portfolio Holder” be replaced with “Lead Cabinet Member”.

It was agreed that the Scrutiny and Overview Committee should be included as one of the Groups that had roles and responsibilities in the Risk Management Process.

It was suggested that the description “Dead cert” for a risk that was inevitable was too colloquial for a Council policy and should be amended. The description was currently on 4Risk system and therefore it will need to be investigated if this could be changed. It was also suggested that it could be useful to have a flow chart, showing how various committees mitigated the risks.

The Principal Accountant agreed to distribute the draft Risk Management Process to the Committee, which was missing from the agenda.

Scrutiny of the risks on the Register

It was noted that in the past a summary of movement through the year in the scoring of strategic risks was presented to the Committee. It was explained that in light of the intention to overhaul the Strategic Risk Register, it had not been updated in the last few months. It was confirmed that the Strategic Risk Register was reviewed by the Scrutiny and Overview Committee and Cabinet. The Committee could rely on this as evidence of adherence to the Risk Management Strategy in the Council. It was noted that the companies controlled by the Council had their own Risk Registers.

Training from the Council’s insurer

It was noted that Councillors were being offered training on risk management by Zurich, the Council’s insurer on Tuesday 13 November from 3pm to 5pm. It was understood that the management of risk could affect the Council’s insurance premium.

Baseline risk

It was noted that the Council set a baseline risk of a loss of £50,000 before taking action. This threshold figure of £50,000 was used to determine whether a risk was assessed as a “noticeable effect” impact or “some limited disruption” impact.

Housing stock

The Executive Director explained that Council houses were not covered in the event of loss, as the risk was managed by having the stock in many locations throughout the District, making a number of losses very unlikely.

The Committee AGREED the draft Risk Management Strategy, with delegated approval to the Executive Director to make the minor amendments agreed by the Committee.