Agenda item

The Council’s Strategic Risk Register has been reviewed and revised to reflect changes arising from the Covid-19 crisis, since its last update in February 2020. The Internal Auditor, Stephen Pearse will present this update to the Committee.

Members of the Audit & Governance Committee are requested to note & approve the revised strategic Risk Register.

The Internal Audit Manager presented his report to the Committee on behalf of the Governance and Risk Group, chaired but the Director of Place, reminding Members that the last time the report was presented to the Committee was on 13 February 2020 following the change in the Councils strategic priorities. It was felt that due to the Covid 19 pandemic the risk register should be reviewed again and had now been updated with an additional new risk and updated comments throughout for consideration by Members.

There were a number of questions asked by Members these are detailed below;

·       Would there be any additional financial support from the Government. It was explained by the Group Head of Corporate Support that there had been a reasonable amount of Government support and there should be opportunities to recover some other losses, financial returns were being completed every month to highlight losses which were mainly being seen around cash flow, the Council had been hit hard in this area due to a drop in income from Council Tax and Business rates.

·       Staff returning to working in the offices, it was felt that the report as written showed slow speed in returning to the offices, although this was being encouraged by the Government. It was advised that currently the guidance was telling us to continue to work from home wherever possible. There had been a number of staff that had return to working in the offices and this would be being reviewed each week ensuring that as an employer the Council continued to comply with the Covid 19 regulations.

·       In terms of Cyber Security, did staff working from home increase the Cyber Security risks. It was explained that while it does bring new and extra challenges, IT continued to work to ensure that there was not a huge additional risk to the Council. The Pandemic had also brought new opportunities for cyber-attacks and there had been an increasingly large number of attacks that were taking place daily, however these were being managed well with the current protections in place, additionally there was now a full time member of staff on site managing the Councils response to Cyber-attacks.

·       Members were also updated that recent work undertaken by IT and a consultant obtained as a result of the LGA’s cyber-security stocktake exercise had now raised the Council’s rating from Red-Amber to Amber-Green, as per the latest LGA assessment.

·       Council Tax and Business Rates had action been taken to start collecting this yet. It was explained that recovery action was started again in July 2020, however with a potential of a large number of residents being subject to remaining on furlough, this was an area that needed to be carefully monitored. 

·       The largest amount of Council Tax monies that Arun District Council collects, goes to West Sussex County Council (WSCC), is there a mechanism for the Council to invoke to stop this. It was explained that these monies sat in a different account called the Collection Fund, we have been in regular communication with WSCC who were obviously very keen to understand each of the 7 districts projections for the next 12 months as understandably this could lead to WSCC having a deficit to manage.

The Committee RESOLVED that;

1)    the Strategic Risk Register be approved.