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The decisions as the council's minutes record them. A plain-language summary follows once it has been written.
RESOLVED That Councillor Mike James be duly elected as Vice-Chair.
RESOLVED That Mr David McGregor be duly elected as Chair.
RESOLVED That the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee agreed to receive the Forecast Outturn and Pre-Audit Annual Return for year ended 2022-23.
RESOLVED That the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee noted the Quarter 1 Financial Monitoring for year ended 2022-23.
RESOLVED That the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee noted the Forward Work Programme, as set out in the report. The meeting ended at 2.57p.m.
No apologies for absence were received.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That Councillor Mike James be duly elected as Vice-Chair.
Nominations were sought for the role of Vice-Chair. Councillor Phil Rogers Moved that Councillor Mike James be duly elected; Seconded by Ms Joanna Jenkins. The vote, undertaken by way of a show of hands, was carried. RESOLVED That Councillor Mike James be duly elected as Vice-Chair.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That Mr David McGregor be duly elected as Chair.
Nominations were sought for the role of Chair. Councillor Phil Rogers Moved that Mr David McGregor be duly elected; Seconded by Councillor Michael James. The vote, undertaken by way of a show of hands, was carried. RESOLVED That Mr David McGregor be duly elected as Chair.
Councillor Aled Thomas Moved to accept the Minutes of the previous meeting in English; Seconded by Councillor Phil Rogers. The vote, by way of show of hands, was carried. RESOLVED That the Minutes of the Meeting held on 11 November 2022 be approved as a correct record, in English. The Chair Moved to accept the Minutes of the previous meeting in Welsh; Seconded by Councillor Mike James. The vote, by way of show of hands, was carried. RESOLVED That the Minutes of the Meeting held on 11 November 2022 be approved as a correct record, in Welsh.
The Committee had before it a report from the Head of Internal Audit, providing it with an updated Terms of Reference that reflected the latest Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) guidance. In considering the report, the following key points were made: • Clarification was sought by Councillor Lesley Walton on the Committee’s name. The Monitoring Officer confirmed that within legislation and the Constitution, the body was titled the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee of the South West Wales Corporate Joint Committee and would be referred to as such going forward. Councillor Walton then made reference to section 5.1 of the Terms of Reference regarding the Committee’s membership of 12, which comprised two Members from each constituent Council, and queried the number of Lay Members. The Monitoring Officer agreed to revise the Terms of Reference in order to make clear that the Sub-Committee is composed of eight elected Members and four Lay Members with voting rights. • Councillor Aled Thomas asked for a grammatical error to be rectified to show that the Sub-Committee’s quorum of four Members included ‘at least one Lay Member’ not ‘a least one Lay Member’ as stated. · In response to a request from Councillor Mike James about the availability of the Terms of Reference in Welsh, the Monitoring Officer advised that the Constitution was currently being translated into Welsh as part of a website review and a bilingual version would be available shortly. · Ms. Joanna Jenkins, making reference to section 2.1.a, suggested a minor correction to the second bullet point to read either ‘consideration of’ or ‘consider the effectiveness of’ not ‘consider of the effectiveness of …’ as stated. · One further correction was noted by the Chair to paragraph numbers cited within the text in paragraphs 13.2 and 13.3 and proposed they be amended to 13.1 (a) and 13.2 respectively and not 12.1(a) and 12.2 as stated. · Ms Paula O’Connor was pleased that the CIPFA Good Guidance was clear on governance risk and control, and extended her thanks to those involved for amending the format. [Amended by Minute 18 of South West Wales Corporate Joint Committee – Governance and Audit Sub-Committee – 25 January 2024] The Committee agreed to accept the Terms of Reference.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee agreed to receive the Forecast Outturn and Pre-Audit Annual Return for year ended 2022-23.
The Chief Finance Officer presented his report on the Forecast Outturn and Pre-Audit Annual Return position of the South West Wales Corporate Joint Committee for year ended 2022-23. The Committee was advised that because of the Corporate Joint Committee’s current size, it was not required to produce a full Statement of Accounts, but to present an Annual Return instead. He drew attention to Appendix A of the report that provided the forecast outturn for the year of £191,000 against the budget of £575,411, which was funded by levies from each of the constituent authorities. This represented an underspend of £384,824, which would be transferred to the Committee’s reserves for use in future years. Regarding the Pre-Audit Annual Return position in Appendix B, the Chief Finance Officer explained an internal audit was conducted before progressing to external audit. He was disappointed to note that the Notice of Certification of Completion of the Audit was received from Audit Wales after publication of the Agenda and, therefore, was unable to submit the Annual Return for the Committee’s approval at the meeting. One amendment was proposed that was related to a misclassification of figures in the table row, headed Creditors, on page 28 of the report, which should have been presented as - £2,506 and not - £18,294 as stated. The Chief Finance Officer then provided the internal audit conclusions on whether objectives were met within the Annual Internal Audit Report on page 31. The Chair requested they be recorded in Minutes as follows: Objectives 1 to 5 (Yes); Objective 6 (Non-applicable); Objective 7 (Yes); Objectives 8 and 9 (Non-applicable); Objective 10 (Yes) and Objectives 11 to 13 (Non-applicable). The Committee then debated the contents of the report. · Councillor Lesley Walton questioned the need of holding another meeting to ratify Audit Wales’ Notice of Certification of Completion of the Audit and was content for the Sub-Committee to make an exception to delegate the matter to officers on this occasion. The Chief Finance Officer offered to circulate the Audit Wales letter and the Sub-Committee’s Approval of the Annual Return once he and the Chair had signed it. RESOLVED That the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee agreed to receive the Forecast Outturn and Pre-Audit Annual Return for year ended 2022-23.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee noted the Quarter 1 Financial Monitoring for year ended 2022-23.
The Chief Finance Officer presented his report on the South West Wales Corporate Joint Committee’s position as at Quarter 1 of the 2023-24 financial year. The Committee was advised that Appendix A provided the Quarter 1 forecast outturn, with a total underspend of £328,878 against the budget set by the Corporate Joint Committee at £617,000, with a levy from each of the constituent authorities. RESOLVED That the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee noted the Quarter 1 Financial Monitoring for year ended 2022-23.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee noted the Forward Work Programme, as set out in the report. The meeting ended at 2.57p.m.
The Head of Internal Audit outlined the items scheduled for meetings planned for the 2024 calendar year. The Internal Audit Work Programme for 2023-24 would be added to the next meeting in January and a Governance Structure update, along with a presentation on the Corporate Plan for the Corporate Joint Committee, was proposed for April. RESOLVED That the Governance and Audit Sub-Committee noted the Forward Work Programme, as set out in the report. The meeting ended at 2.57p.m.
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