Delivering council-wide assurance
Perry Holmes explains what council-wide assurance means to Wiltshire Council and how it works in practice.
Council-wide assurance includes ensuring a sound basis for decision-making and policy development. This is supported by robust and constructive member/ officer relationships and a focus on performance.
How does this work in practice?
The council has developed a Cabinet Tracker to ensure effective oversight, consideration by relevant officers across the council and sign off of all Cabinet reports. The Leader requires all reports to be ready for review a month in advance: the tracker ensures that there is clarity about who is reviewing each report and the timescales for doing so.
Every Monday morning the Cabinet and Corporate Leadership Team (chief executive, corporate directors, and monitoring officer) meet to consider emerging matters. Each month they review all the decisions to be made at Cabinet. This helps ensure that all relevant advice is given to members, building a sound basis for decision making. Reports which have not received advice from all relevant officers will not be cleared to progress for a Cabinet meeting. It’s also a place to discuss policies at an early stage of development, ensuring members are sighted, informed by appropriate advice. It allows time for political dimensions to be considered, ensuring that by the time that decisions are made, any obstacles to implementation have been addressed.
Pre-decision scrutiny plays an important role in Wiltshire Council’s governance and portfolio holders will be questioned by scrutiny on their proposals, giving an opportunity for members from all groups to contribute their views. The Cabinet Tracker supports scrutiny to understand which reports are coming forwards, to help them plan their work programme.
The Council’s approach to assurance is demonstrated in the way it reviews its commercial activity and the development of an assurance framework for their housing company, Stone Circle. This ensured that there is appropriate engagement of members in the company through a Shareholder Group, and councillor directors have been replaced with non-executive directors.
Internal audit and risk monitoring mechanisms are integral to effective assurance. Internal audit holds regular conversations with the network of heads of service to understand the exact nature of emerging risks and gain granular assurance on progress in addressing any of audit’s recommendations that relate to specific services. The Audit and Governance Committee monitors progress in addressing audit recommendations and refers to the internal audit report throughout the year to inform its own work programme.
The council reviews the effectiveness of its governance annually and shares the findings of that review with the extended officer leadership team to give them the opportunity to comment on any areas for improvement. The outcome of that review, set out in the Annual Governance Statement, is considered by the Audit and Governance Committee, which also monitors implementation of the associated action plan.
The council has a very strong performance culture, supported by performance outcome boards, each chaired by a corporate director or director. These are attended by the relevant portfolio holder on a quarterly basis. The Chief Executive chairs an overarching performance outcome board which reviews issues on an exception basis and enables cross-directorate challenge. This supports and strengthens the culture of empowerment and accountability across the council. All corporate directors have also agreed to attend each other’s management teams to support the sharing of ideas and mutual challenge.
Which roles make a particular difference?
The Council Leader sets clear expectations around robust decision making and openness. This responsibility is facilitated by his clear understanding of governance processes and the operation of the council; it is important to invest time in ensuring that leading members have this understanding. The member-officer relationship plays a key role in this: it’s essential that the Leader trusts officers to provide sound advice.
The Chief Executive plays an important role in emphasising the importance of good governance and assurance. He has a regular webinar for all staff across the organisation and meetings with the extended leadership team, at which he talks about the need for rigour and discipline to support member decision-making. The Chief Executive sets the example of leadership and assurance from the top.
An effective working relationship between the Leader and Chief Executive, supported by regular contact and honest conversations, enables them both to deal robustly with any difficulties that arise, and to set a consistent example of the right level of challenge and responsiveness within the member and officer relationship which is mirrored at the level of portfolio holder/ chair and directors.
Consistent communication between the ‘golden triangle’ of the Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer and S151 is supported by monthly meetings that allow regular discussions of emerging issues and strengthen oversight.
CLT has weekly meetings which reinforce a strong working relationship and ensures no important issues slip between the gaps.
Development days were held with Cabinet and CLT after the 2021 elections to build close working relationships and assist with new policy development. Area specific days (related to the main hubs in Salisbury, Chippenham and Trowbridge) focussed on issues that relate to the service provision in those towns or other live local matters.
Top tips
- Provide strong leadership from the council’s most senior roles.
- Develop a culture in which empowerment and accountability are encouraged throughout the organisation.
- Ensure respectful and appropriately trusting relationships between members and officers.
- Regularly check that you have robust governance in place for council-owned companies.
- Take a preventative approach to governance rather than just reacting to urgent risks and issues.
Perry Holmes is Director of Legal and Governance and Monitoring Officer at Wiltshire Council.
