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We are responsible for ensuring that we conduct our business in accordance with the law and proper standards, that we safeguard and properly account for public money and that we use it economically, efficiently and effectively.
Elected members and senior officers are responsible for checking that proper arrangements for the governance of the council's affairs and the stewardship of its resources are in place and operating effectively. In February 2002 we adopted a code of corporate governance, which is consistent with the principles and reflects the requirements of the CIPFA/SOLACE Framework 'Corporate Governance in Local Government: A Keystone for Community Governance'.
In 2002 we established an action plan to develop our corporate governance arrangements. Since then we have paid particular attention to establishing our arrangements for risk management and for strengthening internal control. We also implemented the new statutory code for the ethical conduct of local authority members and introduced whistleblowing arrangements. This year we made significant progress towards completing the tasks in the plan.
The council's Audit Manager has been given the responsibility to independently review and report annually to the Chief Executive's Audit Group, to provide assurance on the adequacy and effectiveness of the code and to gauge the extent of compliance with it.
On the basis of reports on our corporate governance arrangements, we are satisfied that they are in place and operate effectively.
Issues, which are now to be addressed, include:
- further providing information on our corporate governance arrangements to staff, the public and other stakeholders;
- developing additional compliance measures and checks on how well the arrangements are working; and
- further developing monitoring and reporting arrangements.
We are satisfied that these steps will support an improved approach to corporate governance. We will further report our progress in 2004-2005.
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