Agenda item

To consider the report of the GwE Managing Director.

(a) That the Joint Committee confirms that it is certain that GwE:

·         Follows the change in policy by Gwynedd Council since July 2018;

·         Supports the requirement for GwE managers to review travelling expenses claims.

(b) To ask GwE's Managing Director, in consultation with the Monitoring Officer and Head of Finance at Gwynedd Council, to review the governance arrangements and report back to the Joint Committee.

DECISION

(a)     That the Joint Committee confirms its assurance that GwE:-

·         Has followed the Gwynedd Council policy change since July 2018;

·         Supports the requirement for GwE managers to review travel expense claims.

(b)     Requests GwE’s Managing Director, in consultation with Gwynedd Council’s Monitoring Officer and Head of Finance, to review the governance arrangements and to report back to the Joint Committee.

Discussion

Submitted – the report of GwE’s Managing Director giving the Joint Committee assurance that GwE has complied with Gwynedd Council’s policy on travel expense reimbursement only for the number of business miles travelled in addition to the number of miles travelled between home and work / work and home. The Managing Director explained that GwE acted following consultation with Gwynedd Council’s Human Resources Department and came to full agreement with that department. Further, the report provided assurance that GwE had dealt with the mitigation measure arising from the Internal Audit Report, namely ‘Remind managers to review travel expense claims’.

Comments arising from the discussion:-

·         Reference was made to the public discussion at the meeting of Gwynedd Council’s Audit and Governance Committee on 30 July, 2020, regarding GwE’s conditions of work and travel expense claims, and GwE’s Managing Director was asked to provide members with assurance should a misleading perception have arisen therefrom. In response, GwE’s Managing Director explained that GwE staff followed the same procedure as Gwynedd Council, and was in accord with what was agreed with Gwynedd Council Human Resource Department.

·         A member noted, following discussion at the Audit and Governance Committee, that he had read in the press on matters of which he was unaware, and expressed his disappointment with the host authority for not bringing these matters before the Joint Committee before the press got hold of the story. In response, the GwE Managing Director acknowledged that there were lessons to be learnt, had discussed how to communicate in future, and would report back to the Joint Committee.

·         In response to an enquiry as to the host authority’s perception of the situation, the Head of Finance noted that lessons had been learnt by everyone. While no notice had been given to the Joint Committee, he noted that the report had been presented to GwE management in March 2020, and that he had not expected for details of the matter to arise in the Audit and Governance Committee.  Obviously, it would have been better governance had the Joint Committee had received the information, but the first step taken after being given to understand that the matter would be put to the Audit and Governance Committee was to arrange for the item to be placed on the agenda of this meeting.

·         It was noted that GwE’s Management Board had been consulted on the issue and that they were satisfied with the proposed arrangements at the time, and had been assured that GwE was in compliance with Gwynedd Council’s policy, and that travel expense claims would be monitored.

·         It was noted that it was questions raised by members at the meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee had made the headlines, rather than the audit report itself. GwE had addressed the matters raised in the report, and were co-operating closely with the host authority on the agreements and governance between the authorities going forward.

·         It was suggested that lessons learned from this matter, and also the fact that GwE was developing and changing, could mean that it was now time to consider a review of GwE’s governance arrangements.

·         It was noted that it was important that relevant matters should come before the Joint Committee in future. In response, it was noted that this would emerge from the review of the current governance arrangements.

·         The proposal to report back on the governance arrangements was welcomed, with a view to seeing what improvements could be made.