Agenda item

To receive an update on the strategic risks for the Council

The Group Manager Construction, Compliance and Resilience introduced a report on Risk Management, Business Continuity (BC) and the Strategic Risk Register (SRR).  Members were also advised that the SRR had recently been approved by the Corporate Management Team (CMT) on 19 March 2013.

The key points within the report included:

• Completion of operational risk profile;
• Continuation of review and revision of Service and Corporate BC plans;
• Quarterly review of Strategic (corporate) Risk Register by CMT;
• Coordination of Strategic and Departmental Risk Registers;
• Regular risk “conversations” within and between services at all levels;
• Updates on Insite, web and E-Learning;
• Strategic issues such as the introduction and embedding of Risk Management and Business Continuity Management into procurement processes, induction briefings and business plans.
• The training delivered to Members at a recent All Party Policy meeting, which was aimed to assist Members understanding of the risk management process and expectations upon officers;
• Mid May risk management register approval;
• Risk one  - growth agenda was reviewed at CMT and further measures were to be introduced in order to reduce the risk level and apply the necessary resources in order to monitor the progress;
• Risk six – Safeguarding – the recent Ofsted results had been included;
• Risk nine – Public Health had also been captured; and
• Risk ten – the Strategic Partnership arrangements was thought to be robust enough by Senior Officers

The Group Manager Construction, Compliance and Resilience and the Head of Corporate Services responded to comments and questions raised by Members regarding the SRR.  In summary, the responses included:

• Although the Safeguarding SRR score of 15 had remained the same as the previous year, CMT had proposed a number of actions in order to reduce the risk level;
• CMT had focussed on introducing risk measures for the transfer of health services from the Primary Care Trust (PCT) to the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), in order to ensure that the loss of funding did not impact on the health needs of Peterborough. Progress was also to be monitored by the  Health and Wellbeing Board ongoing;
• Strategic Partnerships risk had been included on the register in a more detailed way compared to the previous year’s register, hence the reason for it being identified as a new risk; 
• CMT was to monitor risks on a high level basis for contracts and projects and lower level detail would not be included within the SRR monitoring exercise;
• Any risk identified for income generation for growth projects would be included on the SRR and closely monitored by CMT as appropriate;
• Controls were set at a strategic level in order to monitor contracts;

·         The Enterprise Peterborough contract had been discussed, in detail, at a recent Sustainable Growth and Environment Capital Scrutiny Committee.  The service Directors and the Cabinet Advisor to the Deputy Leader was in attendance to answer questions and note actions in relation to any contract issues raised; and

·         The Energy Park project would be included on the SRR under risk eight, Financial Provision, in line with the relevant financial year, in order to monitor the financial balances.

         ACTION AGREED:

The Committee considered and noted the contents of the report.

         The Committee Further Agreed:

That the Group Manager Construction, Compliance and Resilience and Head of Corporate Service would communicate to CMT, the Audit Committee’s comments and concerns raised regarding whether the appropriate level of risk had been identified on the SRR for the following:

• Growth and income generation based projects;
• The lack of funding for health service provision through Peterborough City Hospital; and
• The Council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy (MFTS) and whether the budget would balance in five years time.