Issue - meetings

An exception performance report was presented which set out the performance and risk headlines from the performance and risk reports which had already been reported to the four main policy committees earlier in the committee cycle.  The Committees views were sought in respect of presentation of the report and the criteria for highlighting a report headline as a risk.

The Chair underlined that it is an important part of the A & S remit to review exceptions having significant consequences and to send them back to their respective Committee if the actions already in place are not having the required effect.

The subsequent discussion included reference to the following issues:

·         It was requested that the report include a reference to the steps that each policy committee decided to take in response to a risk being identified.  If such actions had not yet been included in the policy committee minutes, then this could be provided by way of a verbal update to Committee;

·         It was noted that items would be included in the report if targets had been missed for two consecutive quarters.  The item will stay on the exception report and will only be removed once the target has been met;

·         It was requested that the report quantify the financial exposure for each of the missed targets to assist the Committee in focusing on the issues which have the greatest economic risk or impact to the Council;

·         It was noted that the Committee should be made aware of high risk issues as soon as possible to allow steps to be taken to avoid reputational damage to the Council;

·         A concern was raised in respect of the target of the percentage of establishments with a rating of 3 or better under the food hygiene rating scheme being missed by 10%.  This issue was mainly caused by the current pandemic and not being able to carry out face to face site visits;

·         It was confirmed that measures had been put in place to address the issue of illegal activities taking place in public toilets and further detail was contained in the report to Community Services;

·         In response to a question raised in respect of the risk of cyber-attacks, it was confirmed that the cyber audit had been completed and this would start to be actioned over the coming weeks and would form part of the next audit update to Committee;

·         It was suggested that if the Committee had questions relating to specific targets not being met, these should be raised once the agenda is published so the report author could collate answers in advance of the meeting.  Future Audit & Scrutiny meetings will focus more on reviewing specific exceptions.

R E S O L V E D – that the policy committees’ performance and risk exceptions for Quarter 4 2020/21 be noted.