Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director – Corporate Services and Commercial

The Committee considered the report of the Executive Director of Corporate Resources and Commercial which provided an update on the Corporate Risk Register as detailed in Appendix A to the report.

The Chief Internal Auditor (CIA) presented the report indicating that the ownership of the content of the Corporate Risk Register rested with the Strategic Leadership Board.

The CIA indicated that since the last meeting held on 19 June 2024:

·       No new risk(s) had been added to the Corporate Risk Register in the current quarter

·       One risk had been removed from the CRR;

o   Non-achievement of our aim and ambition to secure the best outcome from a CQC assessment, against current local pressures and demands

This had been removed by ASC due to the advanced stage of preparation for the CQC visit. Evidence was submitted to CQC, and a visit is imminent.

The external review of risk management draft report had highlighted a number of recommendations to improve risk management. There are other on-going initiatives to embed risk management within the Council including assurance mapping and horizon scanning.

Substantial work had been undertaken to attempt to embed risk management across the Council over the past six years through designing a risk framework, providing training, and facilitating the Service and Operational Risk Registers using resources across the Risk and Audit Team to facilitate improvements.

Recent work had been drafting the Sefton Assurance Framework and undertaking Assurance Mapping to inform the Annual Chief Internal Auditor’s Opinion and the Annual Internal Audit Plan.

There was clear evidence of engagement by the leadership team in terms of regularly reviewing the CRR. To demonstrate that risk management was embedded at this level engagement should be universal and consistent over time as highlighted in the update. Improvements required include the consistent regular updating of SRRs, considering the outcome of the ORR’s when looking at SRR and sharing the SRR with the relevant Cabinet Member and the Risk team when requested.

There was one service where the updating of their SRR over the past 12 months hasn’t been timely so further work is being undertaken with the service to ensure this is improved. ORRs remain an area to be improved across the Council and the Risk and Audit service were continuing to work with teams to facilitate this across the organisation.

The implementation of the Council’s risk appetite will help to further embed risk management within the Council and should improve corporate decision making. The risk management training would assist staff and members understand the principles of risk management in a consistent manner. There was further work planned to improve risk management within the organisation through the roll out of Key Risk Indicators.

The initial findings from the external review of the Council’s risk management review had highlighted areas to improve which the team would set out an action plan for the next meeting to consider.

The Committee discussed the following issues:

·       Learning from previous actions to feedback into the Corporate Risk Register

·       Service Area risk registers

·       Horizon scanning

RESOLVED:

That the updated Corporate Risk Register, the nature of the major risks facing the Council and the planned actions in place to mitigate these risks, be noted.