The Director of Finance and Investment, Shaer Halewood, introduced the quarterly report which updated the Committee on the Corporate Risk Register. An improved focus on its most critical risks was a key component of the enhancements to arrangements for managing risk which the Council was working to embed. Ensuring that the leadership had a clear shared and current understanding of those risks was fundamental to that aim. The report provided an update in relation to the arrangements that underpinned the corporate risk register and a copy of the current version of the register was appended to the report.

Each project had its own risk register as well as each directorate for which there was a directorate risk support group, this group then provided a report to the Corporate Governance Group and update to the Senior Leadership Team (SLT). There had been two changes, these were in respect of the risk scores that were required, since the register was reported to the 11 March, 2019 Committee as follows:

Risk 7 - Governance – in recognition of the existing mitigations that now included improved overall internal governance procedures, incorporating a revised Code of Corporate Governance and Annual Governance Statement and involving improved reporting and monitoring, it was acknowledged that the likelihood of the risk arising had actually reduced from 3 to 2, resulting in an overall risk score reduction from 16 to 12;

Risk 14 – Health & Safety – after further consideration of the potential significance of the threat posed by this risk, it was felt that the unmanaged score should have been 16 rather than 12. Given the actual mitigations currently in place there was no actual change to the current risk score of 12.

Councillor Jeff Green referred to the risk register which had been compiled by a sub group of the Committee. He suggested that a sub group of the committee itself should look at the risks and see if it needed to be refreshed with any new risks being added.

Councillor Jeff Green also referred to the terms of reference for the Committee and whether or not they were fully aligned with the risk management approach, having recently seen Kent County Council’s which were heavily stacked around risk. He also suggested that the Committee could take advantage of the Zurich Insurance Group funds available for training.

Members also referred to the need to see more detail and the direction of travel for risks within the report. With regard to the Local Plan risk item, planned additional mitigation could include the work on brownfield sites and their potential for housing developments.

Responding to comments from Members, Shaer Halewood assured the Committee that all the SLT members as well as risk owners had had training. The risks were discussed on a monthly basis and refreshed by the risk support group. She also referred to a number of risks that would be green or at the lower end of amber but the report before the committee only showed the most significant  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7