Agenda, decisions and minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Carys Edwards (Lay Member)

To receive any declaration of personal interest.

Councillor Paul Rowlinson declared an interest in item 11 Output of Internal Audit - Appendix 10 - Ukrainian Refugees Scheme, since he was offering accommodation to a refugee from Ukraine. The Monitoring Officer noted that it was not a prejudicial interest and so the Councillor did not have to leave the meeting.

To note any items which are urgent business in the opinion of the Chairman so they may be considered.

None to note.

To consider the report for information

To accept the report

Note:

·         Need to discuss the Committee's statutory role in respect of the Council's complaints procedure

a)    In accordance with a request made by the Committee at the meeting on 08/09/22, a report was submitted providing an outline of how the Council's departments had responded to the decisions of the Governance and Audit Committee so that Members obtained assurances that their decisions were addressed. It was noted that the report gave Members an opportunity to consider the decision made with the intention of removing the item / decision when the action was completed.

b)    The officer was thanked for the report.

c)    In the context of the Annual Complaints and Service Improvement Report 2021/22, and the suggestion that the Chair revisited the Committee's responsibilities of providing an overview of 'all Council departments' (considering that the Care and Education Services have their own statutory procedures), the Chair noted that Governors were responsible for reviewing school complaints, but that the Education Service's complaints procedure was the Committee's responsibility. He reiterated that the complaints report of the Children and Adults, Health and Well-being Services would be submitted to the Care Scrutiny Committee.

In response, the Head of Finance highlighted that the Committee had a statutory role to review the procedure used by the Council to deal with complaints, and that there was a need for assurances by the Committee that the procedure was effective and for this to be noted in the complaints report.

It was proposed and seconded to accept the report

RESOLVED:

To accept the report

Note:

·         Need to discuss the Committee's statutory role in respect of the Council's complaints procedure

To consider and accept the report

DECISION:

·         To accept the report and the managers' response to the recommendations in 'Arrangements for Responding to the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021'

·         To present a report in six months' time to update the Committee with regard to transferring the functions of the North Wales Economic Ambition Board to an empowered sub-committee of the North Wales Corporate Joint Committee, to streamline governance and avoid duplication between both bodies

·         To accept the report and the managers' response to the recommendations in 'Update on Decarbonisation Progress'

a)    Two reports were submitted, along with the Council's response, in order to update the Committee on recent announcements by Audit Wales:

·         Arrangements for responding to the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021

The Council's response to the Act

·         An update on De-carbonisation Progress

The Council's response to de-carbonisation

Alan Hughes and Yvonne Thomas (Audit Wales Office), Iwan Evans (Head of Legal Service), Dewi Wyn Jones (Operational Support Leader) and Bethan Richardson (Climate Change Programme Manager) were welcomed to the committee to present their comments / responses.

In the context of responding to the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, it was noted that Audit Wales were looking at the arrangements that the Council would put into practice in response to the Act. An assessment of the response to the five work fields was presented. The individual work fields were discussed and what had been implemented to ensure control and progress was elaborated upon.

In the context of the De-carbonisation Progress report, it was noted that the Council had a clear vision, but that there was a need to identify measures soon to measure de-carbonisation steps to evidence progress in the work - reference was made to two recommendations proposed following the audit.

The Climate Change Programme Manager reiterated that every effort was being made to ensure that steps were in place to meet the requirements of the review. She noted that the Council was measuring data annually, with the data being used to measure the impact of a number of the plans included in the Climate Emergency Plan.

Thanks was expressed for the reports.

In response to a question regarding GwyrddNi (an organisation that acted on climate change, located in the community and led by the community), it was confirmed that the Council was collaborating with GwyrddNi.

In response to a question regarding collaborating with capital projects, such as Barmouth Viaduct and considering potential opportunities to include de-carbonisation in those projects, it was noted that work was being done to look at in-house policies and to ensure that de-carbonisation and climate matters were incorporated as fundamental matters when developing projects. The Audit Wales Officer reiterated that de-carbonisation would be a key element in relation to accepting grant applications in the future.

RESOLVED

·         To accept the report and the managers' response to the recommendations in 'Arrangements for Responding to the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021'

·         To present a report in six months' time to update the Committee with regard to transferring the functions of the North Wales Economic Ambition Board to an empowered sub-committee of the North Wales Corporate Joint Committee, to streamline governance and avoid duplication between both bodies

·         To accept the report and the managers' response to the recommendations in 'Update on Decarbonisation Progress'

To consider the report and actions created in response to recommendations in external audit reports are realised.

DECISION:

·         To accept the report and note the information that there are appropriate arrangements in place to ensure that improvement proposals arising from external audit reports are implemented

Note:

·         That 'completed' means one of two things in the 'key to the conclusions' – there is a need to highlight which one applies to the conclusions of those proposals / recommendations that are 'completed'.

a)    The report was submitted by the Corporate Director. Members were reminded that the item was to be considered as a governing role and not as a scrutiny role with a request that the Committee should be satisfied that there were appropriate arrangements in place to ensure that improvement proposals arising from external audits should be realised.

It was noted that the work of responding to most of the improvement proposals was continuous work and that the Governance Group chaired by the Chief Executive had been addressing the improvement proposals and the progress of the recommendations. It was reiterated, in relation to those proposals where the conclusion noted 'completed', they would not be receiving further attention by the Committee; an update will be provided to the Committee on those noted as 'in progress' within 6 months.

Following comments from the Committee at the meeting in June 2022, it was noted that the format had been altered as well as the key which now included three headings - preparatory work / in progress / completed. It was noted that a reference to the timetable for the work was also included.

The officer was thanked for the report.

In response to a question regarding a clear action programme for the plans, it was noted that every plan had clear recommendations and a detailed action plan. It was reiterated that although a rough action plan was submitted to the Governance and Audit Committee, that full and detailed reports were submitted to the relevant Scrutiny Committees with the Governance Committee receiving a response to the comments of the Scrutiny Committees.

In response to a comment that the 'Review of Domiciliary Care Service Report' was 'completed' and whether the criteria had been met and the issue scrutinised, it was noted that the Service in question had received a recent audit by the Care Inspectorate and that a response would be prepared by the next meeting of the Committee.

In response to a follow-up comment regarding the term 'completed' and the need for a concise explanation which possibly explained the situation in full, it was highlighted that 'completed' meant more than one thing in the key and the need to highlight which one was relevant to the report was accepted.

RESOLVED

·         To accept the report and note the information that there are appropriate arrangements in place to ensure that improvement proposals arising from external audit reports are implemented

Note:

·         That 'completed' means one of two things in the 'key to the conclusions' - there is a need to highlight which one applies to the conclusions of those proposals / recommendations that are 'completed'.

To scrutinise the information before the Cabinet considers approving the Savings Plan in its meeting on February 14th.  

DECISION:

·         That the process of identifying the savings had been challenging

·         That reasonable steps, under challenging circumstances, have been taken to draw up the Savings Plan

·         That the savings proposed are reasonable and achievable

·         That the risks and implications of the decision are clear

·         That the report is adequate to enable the Cabinet to make a decision on the entire Savings Plan

·         To present observations from the discussion on the report to the Cabinet for their consideration when discussing the 2023/24 Savings in its meeting on 14/2/23

Note:

·         The risk of not achieving schemes needs to be better highlighted

·         We need to highlight that the impact of the savings will not have a disproportionate effect across the County

a)    Submitted – the report of Councillor Dyfrig Siencyn, Council Leader, asking the Committee to consider the propriety of the process of identifying the savings, and submit observations to the Cabinet to consider before coming to a decision at their meeting on 14-02-23. It was reported that it was not the Committee's role to express an opinion on the size of the savings or the features of individual proposals recommended as savings, but rather to ensure that the Cabinet was clear on the facts that were presented to it, so that the decisions made were based on robust information.

When presenting the background to the work, it was noted, despite receiving a better settlement than projected from the Welsh Government, that the sum was insufficient to meet costs, and that there was a financial deficit of £12.4m in order to achieve a balanced budget.

In order to identify savings, 320 proposals were received from Council Departments (with a value of approximately £23m). Every proposal had been assessed by the Chief Executive or by one of the Corporate Directors and they were placed in four categories to assist Members to prioritise with an awareness of what the level of risk would be from implementing any individual proposal.

It was reiterated that a legal assessment and high-level financial assessment had been completed on every individual scheme in order to ensure that they were achievable. When submitting their proposals, the Departments had included an assessment of the impact of each proposal on the residents of Gwynedd as well as an initial consideration of equality considerations.

Over a three-day period, every Head of Department had submitted their proposals to workshops comprising of Cabinet Members, Scrutiny Chairs and Vice-chairs, as well as the Leaders of the Council's Political Groups. Throughout the process, the main aim was to seek to identify proposals that would have the least impact on the residents of Gwynedd should they be implemented. The outcome of the process was identifying around £6.4m of efficiency savings that could be implemented.

Considering that the Council was facing a financial deficit of around £12.4m over the next two years, it was reported that the first phase of savings (£6.4m) would not be sufficient to address this, and that the proposal was to revisit the remaining proposals submitted by the departments over the coming months. Based on the current financial projections, a total of between £8m and £8.6m would need to be found towards a financial deficit of £12.4m - between £1.6m and £2.2m would need to be found in additional savings before setting the 2024/25 budget. It is anticipated that this would push the Council into the territory of cuts instead of efficiency savings that are recommended in the report, and the need for more support by the individual Scrutiny Committees to face this challenge was noted.

The officer was thanked for the report.

In response to a question regarding how the Adults, Health and Well-being Department would cope, considering that they have an overspend  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

To scrutinise the information before the Cabinet recommends the 2023/24 budget to the full Council

DECISION:

·         To accept the report and note the content

·         To accept the financial propriety of the proposals and the relevant risks

·         To present observations from the discussion on the options to the Cabinet for their consideration when discussing the 2023/24 Budget in its meeting on 14/2/23

a)    A report was presented by the Cabinet Member for Finance, noting that the Council had received a draft grant increase of 7.0%, equivalent to a value of £14.6m in external funding (7.9% was the average for Wales) for 2023/24, which was a significant improvement on the indicative settlement published in December 2022. Despite this year's reasonable settlement, it was reported that a number of factors would create additional spending pressures on Council services in 2023/24, with the need to increase spending by £27.8m to meet the pressures on the services' budgets. As well as addressing a higher rate of inflation than had been seen for many years, there was an opportunity to deal with broader spending pressures, including addressing ongoing costs deriving from the Covid-19 crisis, and abolishing or deferring savings schemes that were impractical to realise in 2023/24.

It was reported that the Committee's role was to scrutinise the information and ensure that the Cabinet and Council were clear of the facts presented to them so that the decision was based on robust information.

The Head of Finance Department was invited in his role as statutory finance officer to express his view and provide details on the robustness of the estimates that were the basis to the budget, along with the potential risks and mitigation steps.

He highlighted that the Cabinet's decision would be sought at its meeting on 14/02/23 to recommend to the Full Council (02/03/23) to establish a budget of £317,880,310 for 2023/24 to be funded via a Government Grant of £227,842,930 and £90,037,380 of income from Council Tax (with a 4.95% increase on the rates of individual dwellings) and establish a capital programme of £67,780,150 in 2023/24.

It was explained that Additional Expenditure Requirements had been considered in the budget and attention was drawn to those fields;

·         Salary Inflation of £14.2m – the budget set aside an estimated increase of 4% in the 2023/24 pay agreement for the whole workforce, after an increase to reflect the situation that the final pay agreement for 2022/23 had been higher than what had been earmarked in the budget for it.

·         Other Inflation of £11.1m - a sum that includes a provision for a broad range of changes in the rate of inflation of specific fields (Independent Residential Care Homes, Non-residential Care, Energy, Fuel, other price increases).

·         Levies to relevant bodies are increasing.

·         Demography - net reduction in the number of pupils and an increase in looked after children.

·         Pressure on Services of £5.75m - it was recommended that bids worth £2.75m for additional permanent resources submitted by Council departments to meet inevitable pressures on their services were approved. In addition to the permanent bids, it was recommended to approve the addition to the Homelessness budget of £3m which is being funded from the Council Tax Premium, in accordance with the full Council's decision on 1 December 2022. It was noted that the submitted bids had been thoroughly challenged by the Leadership Team, prior to their recommendation for approval  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

To receive the information, consider any risks arising from the strategy before it  is presented to the full Council for adoption.

DECISION:

·         To accept the report and to note the information and relevant risks

·         To support the Cabinet Member for Finance's intention to submit the strategy to the Full Council for approval on 2 March 2023

a)            The Investment Manager presented a report, providing an overview of the Council's Capital activities and treasury management. Members were reminded that they had received a presentation by Arlingclose, the financial consultants, explaining the detail behind the strategy in an understandable and comprehensive manner.

Reference was made to the capital activities and attention was drawn to the fact that the Council intended to make capital spending of £67.8 million in 23/24, with the main schemes listed in the report, along with the funding sources. It was noted that the external resources were mainly from Welsh Government and the funds were our own resources.  The remainder of the funding came from loans that would be repaid over a number of years, normally from revenue resources or from income from the sale of assets, which was consistent with the actions of previous years. This meant that the indicator - Council's Capital Funding Requirement, would be £177.8 million by the end of the 23/24 financial year, namely the level that the Council's long-term borrowing should remain below.

In the context of the Borrowing Strategy, it had been highlighted recently that there had been no long-term borrowing requirement, only a short-term requirement at a low cost over the end of the financial year; this would continue with no long-term borrowing anticipated for Cyngor Gwynedd activities, and that the Council's debt would remain below the Capital Funding Requirement.

It was highlighted that Arlingclose had highlighted the need to report on the Liabilities Benchmark every quarter from now on. The Council would expect its borrowing to be above its liabilities benchmark for the duration of 2024 since the Council had a high level of reserves. It was reiterated that the situation would be monitored on an on-going basis, with regular updates presented to the Committee.

In the context of the Investment Strategy, it was noted that the Council's policy was to prioritise security and liquidity over output in order to ensure that money was available to pay for the Council's services. It was noted that sums were being kept to ensure continuous liquidity - it was considered that retaining liquidity and security was a priority at present in a period of cuts and inflation.

Reference was made to the risk management and governance, and the details of the long-term commitments of the Council, e.g. to redress the deficit in the Pension Fund, and the impact of the funding costs on cash flow. It was also confirmed that officers had the relevant knowledge and skills, and that Arlingclose would continue to provide a financial advisory service to the Council for the coming years.

RESOLVED:

·         To accept the report and to note the information and relevant risks

·         To support the Cabinet Member for Finance's intention to submit the strategy to the Full Council for approval on 2 March 2023

To consider the update on progress against the 2022/23 audit plan

DECISION:

·         To accept the report, noting the progress made against the Audit Plan 2022/23

a)    Submitted, for information, a report by the Audit Manager updating the Committee on the current situation in terms of completing the Internal Audit Plan 2022/23. Reference was made to the status of the work and the time spent on each audit. It was highlighted that 59, out of the 46 individual audits in the plan, that 27 had been released in a final version or had been closed.

The officer was thanked for the report.

RESOLVED:

·         To accept the report, noting the progress made against the Audit Plan 2022/23

To receive the report, comment on the contents and support the actions that have already been agreed with the relevant services

DECISION:

·         To accept the report

·         To support the actions that have already been agreed with the relevant services

·         To request an update from the Audit on Taxi Safety (limited assurance level)

·         That the matter of not implementing regulatory procedures in Care Homes should be referred to the Care Scrutiny Committee.

a)    Submitted for information, a report by the Audit Manager updating the Committee on the internal audit work for the period from 1 May 2022 until 25 January 2023. It was highlighted that 24 of the audits in the plan had been completed and given a high assurance level; adequate or restricted.

Each audit was referred to in turn.

b)    Matters arising from the ensuing discussion:

                  Taxi Safety Audit 

·         Concern that the expected evidence was not seen when processing taxi licence applications (registration documents, MOT certificates and insurance documents were missing).

·         There was a need to ensure that the Licensing Department had valid actions in response to the concerns and to avoid a continuation of mistakes in 2023/34.

In response, it was noted that staff shortages was one of the reasons for the drop in the quality of the work and that staff seconded to the Department were inexperienced. It was reiterated that every effort had been made to improve the situation.

In response to a question as to whether the arrangements applied to water taxis and ferries, it was noted that this could be included in the 2023/24 plan.

Social Economic Duties Audit 2021

In response to a question where it was challenged whether 'adequate' was the correct conclusion in the audit, considering that impact assessments had to be supported by data in order to justify the statements, it was noted that one part of the final assessment form was being addressed here, in response to the duty of encouraging better processes to make strategic decisions and for the Authority to consider the inequality that derived from economic disadvantage.  In response to a supplementary question as to whether gathering views and experiences were considered per group or area, it was noted that views were gathered per individual or group, but that geographical information was available for consideration. It was reiterated that requests for experiences seemed to overcome the need for data by now.

Audits of Plas Gwilym, Hafod Mawddach and Bryn Blodau Residential Care Homes

·         Concern that a pattern was emerging regarding concerns at Care Homes.

·         Has consideration been given to the complaints that are relevant to this service? Although a corporate complaints audit has been completed, is it possible to build the findings into the Audit? Suggestion to look at specific events, complaints, matters arising as a part of the future methodology - that it is possible to use other sources of information such as Ombudsman reports.

·         That the findings of the audit are too favourable considering the historical patterns to the control steps.

·         That there is a culture in this field, not restricted to the three homes in question alone, to cut corners and ignore procedures - need to act and refer the matter to the Care Scrutiny Committee.

c)    The officer was thanked for the report.

RESOLVED:

·         To accept the report

·         To support the actions that have already been agreed with the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.