Agenda and draft minutes
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Apologies To receive any apologies for absence. The quorum for the Audit and Governance Committee is 3 members.
Additional documents: Minutes: Apologies were received from…
Councillors Nick Bridges and Tony Dale, and Independent Member John Cheshire. |
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Substitute Members To note details of any substitution arrangements in place for the meeting. Additional documents: Minutes: Councillor Ian Watson attended as substitute for Councillor Nick Bridges, and Michael Vann attended as substitute for Councillor Tony Dale.
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Declarations of Interest To receive any declarations of interest from Members relating to items to be considered at the meeting. Additional documents: Minutes: No declarations were made.
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To confirm the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 14 July 2025. Additional documents: Minutes: The minutes of the meeting held on 14 July 2025 were discussed. The Chair noted that page nine requested that the Deputy Chief Executive Officer provide the Exposure to Investment Report, to which the officer confirmed that this related to the Council’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) position, that it has not been provided yet but would be prior to the next meeting, and that it was unlikely to have materially changed since previous reviews. The Chair noted that an additional financial report update was also requested, but that this was included in the Committee’s agenda and as such would be reviewed.
RESOLVED: The minutes were approved.
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Public Questions To deal with questions from the public within the open forum question and answer session of fifteen minutes in total. Questions or supplementary questions from each member of the public should be no longer than one minute each and relate issues under the Committee’s remit. Additional documents: Minutes: There were no public questions.
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Member Questions To deal with written questions by Members, relating to issues under the Committee’s remit, with the maximum length of oral supplementary questions at Committee being no longer than one minute. Responses to any supplementary questions will be dealt with in writing following the meeting. Additional documents: Minutes: There were no member questions.
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Local Code of Corporate Governance Purpose To present the latest version of the Local Code of Corporate Governance for adoption by Cotswold District Council.
Recommendation That the Committee resolves to: 1. Adopt the latest version of the Local Code of Corporate Governance Additional documents:
Minutes: The purpose of the report was to present the Local Code of Corporate Governance. The Business Manager for Governance, Risk and Business Continuity introduced the report, explaining that it set out the principles of the governance framework for the Council. The officer noted that the annual governance statement was presented to a previous committee, and that this report detailed how the Council was meeting the Code and provided a forward-looking Governance Action Plan. The officer noted that two versions were included, one with listed amendments and one without. Where the ‘delivering good governance’ principles were listed, the bullet points following them were different and as such were included in an addendum – along with plans for delivering on those points. The Committee queried how Council officers were expected to memorise or internalise these principles. The officer clarified that while the expectation would be for managers to have a working knowledge as they were responsible for monitoring and updating their relevant parts, the report as provided was to enable the Council to have an annual benchmark for performance and behaviours, and these updates were in service of that effort. The Deputy Chief Executive Officer added that the report set out the standards and behaviours expected of the Council, which included consideration of what each team produced that contributed to meeting these requirements, how these efforts were evidenced, and whether the standards were up to date. The officer continued that these considerations were likely to be automatic for officers that worked under these principles regularly, but the report aimed to better present these to members of the Council who may not have been so aware of the terms.
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Internal Audit Progress Report Purpose To present a summary of the audit work concluded since the last meeting of this Committee.
Recommendation That the Audit and Governance Committee resolves to: 1. Note the report
Additional documents:
Minutes: The purpose of the report was to present the progress of the Internal Audit team. The Chair explained that this report consisted of four items and requested any comments from members. The Head of Internal Audit noted that of the listed actions on page 12 in Annex B, only one was currently still active in addition to one having been subsumed into another active project (Business World).
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Q1 Prudential Indicators (Treasury Management) Purpose To report to the Audit and Governance Committee the quarter one Treasury Management Indicators as required by the CIPFA Treasury Management Code.
Recommendation That the Audit and Governance Committee resolves to:
Additional documents:
Minutes: The Deputy Chief Executive Officer explained that the item was a quarterly report, part of the five major reports delivered to the Council each year. He also noted that the half-year and outturn reports would include greater detail than this first quarter report; this item was more focused on whether the Council remained compliant with the Treasury Management Strategy as adopted in February 2025. The officer continued to section 4, the liability benchmark, explaining that this illustrated what the underlying borrowing need for the Council would be in the near future without significant departures from current circumstances. Where the end figure at the bottom of the benchmark table included a bracket symbol, this indicated that the Council would meet all obligations without borrowing, whereas a figure without this symbol implied a potential need to borrow. The officer noted that at the time of the Committee meeting this was mostly affected by the planning for, albeit without a commitment to, the replacement of the District’s waste vehicle fleet at some point in the period of 2026-2028 with an estimated cost of around £6m – and that the most cost effective way of delivering these replacements was currently under investigation. Page 106, as noted by the officer, set out whether long term treasury management investments were compliant with requirements, generally focusing on pooled funds with a value of around £12.5m against an upper limit of £13m. The officer explained that with these investments the value could increase as well as decrease, but the Council was fully compliant with requirements as listed. The officer finally explained that on page 107 was a forecasting table indicating the effect of a 1% increase or decrease of interest rates on the Council’s portfolio, but that as members may have been aware national interest rates had remained high for external long- and short-term borrowing. A previous draft included an error making the 0.02 figure in the middle column 2p rather than £0.02M which had been corrected in this issuance. The Committee queried how forecast accuracy was measured from previous periods. The officer answered that typically officers had underestimated returns and overestimated costs, leading to a trend of forecasts anticipating worse returns than in reality. The officer explained that this had been considered a prudent budget expectation – assuming that the liquidity of the Council would reduce faster than it did or that interest rates would decrease sooner would lead to, as he felt, a preferred outcome of the Council overperforming against forecasting rather than falling short and potentially having an investment deficit. The officer confirmed that forecasting accuracy was not measured directly, with the expectation that if investments came closer to breaching any established estimates the Committee would rightly interrogate this. The Committee noted, as on page 106 as an ‘additional indicator’, that the Council had received its own credit rating and queried which organisation had been calculating this. The officer explained that the rating was specifically for exposure regarding investments, not a rating for the Council ... view the full minutes text for item 37. |
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Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit Update Report Purpose To provide the Committee with assurance over the counter fraud activities of the Council and to update the Committee in relation to the areas of fraud risk mitigation. Direct updates will continue to be provided biannually. To present the Committee with an updated Fraud Risk Strategy 2025, Fraud Compliance Report and Fraud Response Plan, so that they may consider the approach taken by the Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit Partnership as the body charged with governance in this area. To provide assurance to the Committee that the risks of fraud committed against the Council are recognised, managed and mitigated in accordance with Council priorities, and changing fraud trends.
Recommendation That the Committee resolves to: 1. Note the report and attachments; Fraud Risk Strategy 2025, Fraud Compliance Report and Fraud Response Plan are appended at Annex A, B and C respectively. Additional documents:
Minutes: The Chair introduced the report, noting that there were three items, and requested the officer explain how each link to the others. The Head of Service for the Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit thanked the Chair and explained that while the Committee would have traditionally been provided with a mid-year update at this time, this process had changed to provide a full year report in April and this half-year report was now to be focused on high-risk areas and ongoing or actions completed by officers. This included reviewing and updating several documents including the 2022 Fraud Risk Strategy, of which the updated version had been provided to members – this document provided an overview of what risks the Council was exposed to, how these were mitigated, what motivations had been identified for individuals committing fraud, and other pertinent details. The officer also noted that when the original Fraud Risk Strategy document was submitted for approval, the team also committed to measuring their progress against a ‘checklist’ of standards provided by the Local Government Association; this was the Fraud Compliance Report provided to the Committee which listed each action as fully, partially, or noncompliant. The officer was pleased to report that for most items the Council was fully compliant, with remaining gaps including data protection – though this only related to a specific software used for data matching that the Council did not currently license or use, rather than any outstanding vulnerabilities in data management within Council systems. The officer continued and introduced the Fraud Response Plan, also included in the report, which was a ‘quickfire’ response document for officers and external bodies on how to respond to a potential fraud, focused on maintaining the integrity of any potential investigations by ensuring staff were aware of appropriate actions and parties to report to. The officer noted that the report also included a number of updates on how high-risk areas were being managed, including council grant schemes which were subject to a new management policy that would be submitted to the Committee or to Cabinet in the near future, as well as ‘polygamous working’; that is, working multiple, undeclared jobs, of which there had been a recent case. This also contained a new report to be submitted but this would be a longer-term project, which the officer thanked the HR team for their assistance in developing.
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Procurement Investigation - Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit Purpose To present the Committee with a report on findings from an investigation into concerns related to three specific procurement activities of Cotswold District Council.
To provide assurance to the Committee that the risks of fraud committed against the Council or within the Council are recognised, managed, and mitigated appropriately.
Recommendations That the Committee resolves to: 1. Note the report. 2. Request an update on the action plan being brought back to the committee in April 2026. Additional documents:
Minutes: The Chair handed introduction of the report to the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, who explained that the report consisted of two parts; what had already occurred, and what the Council’s officers had done or were currently doing in response to it:
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Audit and Governance Committee Work Plan For the Committee to review and note its work plan. Additional documents: Minutes: The Chair invited the Deputy Chief Executive to introduce the work plan.
The officer explained that the two following reports should be considered as one item as they were intrinsically linked, these being the external auditor’s report and the statement of council audit opinions. The Council had been working closely with the designated external auditors Bishop Fleming to ensure this was delivered in a timely manner – noting that while there was a slight delay due to resourcing issues good progress had been made. The expectation remained that this would be available to the December committee, otherwise it would be submitted to the January committee as these options were well within the statutory requirement of the 27 February 2026.
No comments or questions were offered.
RESOLVED: The Committee noted the work plan.
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