The Deputy Head of Finance presented a report setting out the responsibilities and functions of the GAC and the list of items that were due to come to the next committee and for the committees during the year. In terms of the Statement of Accounts which they had previously said would be brought to the November meeting, there was a national issue around the treatment of infrastructure assets which was still ongoing. It was now likely that the accounts would be brought to the GAC meeting to be held in January 2023 for approval. The Regulatory Tracker report would also be submitted to the January and July meetings. The Deputy Head of Finance asked if there were any additional items that the Committee wanted to include on the forward work programme.

A Member referred to the list of all the documents that comprised the good governance framework and asked for assurance that all of the documents were reviewed by a body? The Deputy Head of Finance replied that she could not say definitely that all of them were annually refreshed but they all were approved by either Cabinet or Council. The Member asked if this could be written down somewhere so that there was a list of the documents and what scrutiny they went through to ensure appropriate governance was in place for everything. The Deputy Head of Finance agreed to include a table to show where the document was approved and the process.

The Chairperson stated that if the Annual Governance Statement and the Statement of Accounts were available sooner then a special meeting could be arranged as the agenda for January was already quite busy. 

RESOLVED:       That the Committee considered and approved the     updated Forward Work Programme for 2022-23.