Agenda and minutes

Received from Nick Whitaker.

None.

If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a) Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b)   Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c)   Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d)   Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e)   Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f)   Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g)   Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

None.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 28 January 2020 be confirmed as a correct record and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

RESOLVED:

That Councillor Satnam Gill be appointed to the Pensions Sub-Committee, to replace Councillor Andy Hull.

Ade Oyerinde, Marc Chang and Paul Grady, representing Grant Thornton, were present.

In response to a question as to whether the auditors were confident that they would be able to produce the audit on time, Paul Grady stated that he was confident that, all being well, the final audit report would be produced before the deadline of November 2020.

A member of the Committee asked for a definition of the reference to “beacon properties” in the report. Paul Grady replied that it was a method of property valuation that did not involve the valuation of each property individually.  The Director Service Finance said that he would circulate details to members of the Committee of the total number of beacon properties in Islington.

RESOLVED:

(a) That the contents of the report of the Director Service Finance and Acting

Section 151 Officer, presenting Grant Thornton’s external audit plan for the

external audit of the Council and the Pension Fund for the year ending 31

March 2020, be approved.

(b) That the Annual Report 2019/20, appended to the report of Director

Service Finance, be also approved.

(c) That the addenda reprots on Grant Thornton’s response to Covid-19 for both the Council and Pension Fund audits, be also noted.

(d) That information be circulated to members of the Committee on the total number of beacon properties in Islington.

The Acting Director of Human Resources introduced his report which detailed an analysis of the gender pay gap within the Council.  He noted that: the Council’s overall mean and median figures for gender showed a positive picture and that these reflected high levels of female representation in middle and senior management: in contrast to gender, pay gaps for BAME staff were larger and the Council was taking a range of actions to improve the progression and recruitment of BAME people into middle and senior grades, including a new management development programme: that through the Workforce Strategy, staff who had not as yet declared a disability would be encouraged to do so that action could be taken to provide them with access to the support that they needed at work.

The Committee discussed aspects of the recruitment and retention of BAME  senior staff level in the Council.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report of the Acting Director of Human Resources, detailing

analysis undertaken to compile information on gender pay gap in the Council, be noted.

The Director of Fairer Together, Strategy & Change, introduced her report, which detailed the work of the Strategy & Change Team in strengthening the Council’s approach to project and programme management through the establishment of a Project Management Office, the findings of a review of the Project Management Office undertaken earlier this year and the new approach to Corporate Delivery to be rolled out from June, in line with the

Council’s new Target Operating Model.

She undertook to report back in September to share more detail of directorate and programme plans and the process for risk mitigation.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report detailing the work of the Strategy and Change Team be noted.

Members noted that a number of audits had not been completed, although completion was geared to Q4. In response to questions from members about the sufficiency of resources in the Audit Team, the Head of Internal Audit, Investigations and Risk Management said that the Team was well resourced. An Audit Manager had been appointed and had taken up her post in April 2020.  On the matter of whistleblowing complaint investigations, she noted that the length of investigation was due to the practicalities around these particular cases, rather than a resourcing issue. 

RESOLVED:

That the 2020-21 Internal Audit Plan, detailed in the report of the Acting S151

Officer, be approved.

RESOLVED:

That the revised Whistleblowing policy at Appendix 1 to the report of the Acting S151 Officer, including section 1.3, matters in scope of the procedure and section 3.1, Audit Committee approval for the use of an external investigator, be approved.

The Chair asked for written responses on various individual whistleblowing cases in the exempt appendix. Once a response had been received, this would be circulated to all members of the Committee.

RESOLVED:

(a) That the contents of the report of the Acting S151 Officer, detailing whistleblowing referrals made between 1^st April 2019 and 10^th February 2020, in addition to referrals carried forward from previous years, be noted.

(b) That written responses on various individual whistleblowing cases in the exempt appendix, raised by the Chair, be circulated to members of the Committee in due course.

RESOLVED:

That the press and public be excluded during consideration of the following items as the presence of members of the public and press would result in the disclosure of exempt information within the terms of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, for the reasons indicated:

Noted.

Noted.