The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change presented a report which provided the Committee with an update regarding the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 and proposed amendments to the Terms of Reference of the Committee.

She stated that the Act was passed by the Senedd on 18 November 2020 and received Royal Assent on 20 January 2021. The legislation covered a range of areas like electoral reform, public participation, governance and performance and regional working. The Act aimed to provide a more streamlined approach to performance, good governance and improvement and introduced the following:

• Reforming Electoral Arrangements for local government
• General Power of Competence
• Reforming public participation in local government
• Reforms around democratic governance and leadership
• Reform of the performance and governance regime
• Collaborative Working
• Voluntary Mergers of principal councils

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change explained that the Act introduced previously consulted upon reforms to change Audit Committees including:

• For May 2021, the renaming of the Committee to Governance and Audit Committee;

• From May 2022, prescribed changes to membership and Chair – a third of members to be Lay Members and the Chair to also be a Lay Member;

• Replacing audit and reporting duties with duties with regard to self-assessment and panel assessment (Peer review), including duties to:

o   consider both the draft and final versions of the Council’s self-assessment report;

o   at least once during the period between two consecutive ordinary elections, to consider the Independent Panel Performance Assessment report;

o   to review the Council’s response to the Independent Panel Performance Assessment report;

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change explained that it was proposed that the Terms of Reference of the Committee within Part 3 of the Council’s Constitution be amended to include the points listed in paragraph 4.2 of the report. She added that, in addition to this, it was identified that the purpose of the Committee needed to be updated to reflect responsibilities around governance and the new legislation. Therefore, it was proposed that the purpose of the Governance and Audit Committee be updated as per paragraph 4.3 of the report.

A Member mentioned the point that a third of the Committees members should be Lay members, which included the chair. She asked if there was a default position that the Committee could take if they were unsuccessful in obtaining one third lay members. The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change confirmed that she did not have the details regarding this and expected that some guidance would follow closer to the date of implementation of this part of the Act.

A Member mentioned that some of the changes would have future cost implications. She asked if the Council were aware of what these costs would be. The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change stated that she did not have the details of these, but once the details were confirmed of what the Council was expected to do, what grants or resources were available etc, these costs would become more clearly identified.

The Chairperson stated that as the Committee had a new responsibility to review the effectiveness of the Council’s complaints process, was it possible to have a report to the Committee in quarter 3 of the financial year to understand how the complaints process was currently managed. The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change agreed to put this forward as it was an important role of the Committee, but also it was useful to help understand the numbers of complaints and what types of complaints  were being received. The Committee asked for a report on the complaints process, so that they could familiarise themselves with process and numbers.

The Chairperson asked that when further clarification was made in terms of the changes to the Governance and Audit Committee, could training sessions be provided to provide a better understanding of the changes and their ramifications. The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change suggested that this training be provided alongside the training on fraud prevention. Members agreed this would be beneficial for the Committee.

RESOLVED:         That the Committee:

• Noted the report and the prescribed reforms to the current Committee;

• Noted the proposed amendments to the Terms of Reference and purpose of the Committee to be presented to Council for approval.

• Requested that the details of process and numbers of complaints be brought to a future Committee meeting later this year.