Agenda item

At the Governance and Audit Committee meeting held in September 2013 Grant Thornton had presented a financial resilience report as part of their final account work for 2013/14. The report highlighted the key findings from their specific review of the Council’s arrangements in securing financial resilience. This review included consideration of whether the Council has robust financial systems and processes in place to manage its financial risks and opportunities and whether it has secured a stable financial position that enables it to continue to operate for the foreseeable future. Although the report concluded that the Council has put sound arrangements in place and adequately approached financial planning, governance and control a few areas of potential weakness where arrangements needed to be strengthened were identified.

An action plan to address the weaknesses that had been identified within the financial resilience plan for the year ended 31 March 2013 was attached at annex 1 for approval by Members.

One of the recommended actions is to separate the S151 officer role from the Chief Executive role and move it to a new post of Director of Corporate Resources. Members asked where the money to fund this new post would come from. Sarah Martin advised that funding for this post was already in the base budget. Members also asked what the process would be for recruiting to this post and suggested that the Governance and Audit Committee should have sight of the procedure for Director recruitment to comment on.

Harvey Patterson said that one part of the process was to test the candidate to assess their general ability. The Officer Employment Procedure Rules on page 245 of the Council’s Constitution (and also Standing Orders relating to Staff) informs Members of the procedure for recruitment to Head of Paid Service and Chief Officers. He added that the General Purposes Committee ensured that Members were involved in any such recruitment.  Members said that it was not just separating the s151 officer post from the Chief Executive but was an entirely new post and that it was important that Members knew what the requirements of this role were envisaged to be.

Members enquired as to how the s151 officer role being separated would affect Thanet District Council and what other Council’s were doing. Andy Mack, Director, Grant Thornton advised Members that of the 12 districts in Kent, three have a joint role of Chief Executive and s151 officer. He added that for this Council the Senior Management Team were stretched and that that needed to be addressed.

In looking at Strategic Financial Planning and the focus of the Medium Term Financial Plan which has continued to be updated to reflect the most up to date spending cut announcements and the latest assumptions, Members were concerned that some services may be axed as they were not deemed to be essential. Sarah Martin advised that a service review programme has been established to look at alternative service delivery methods and that all services were being looked at.

Moved by Councillor W Scobie and seconded by Councillor Moore that:

“Governance and Audit approve the action plan at Annex 1 to this report”

MOTION ADOPTED.