The Report of the Assistant Director of Transformation and Efficiency is attached.

Contact: Billy Webster (billy.webster@shropshire.gov.uk)

The Committee received the report of the Service Director for Strategy which provided an overview of the risk activity during 2024/25 and a synopsis of the current risk exposure of the authority in relation to strategic, operational and project risks.  It also set out the undertakings, challenges and achievements accomplished by the team during 2024/25.

The Service Director for Strategy introduced and amplified his report.  He explained that the management of the risks formed part of the Annual Governance Statement and that the Risk and Business Continuity team managed and monitored all of the processes and practices around risk to ensure that effective solutions to risk management were established and embedded across the Council.  However, it was the risk owners who managed the risks. 

He drew attention to the risk dashboards which presented the monitoring of risks in real time, and he assured the Committee that the risks were fully monitored both within services and also across the Council.  He explained how risk reviews were undertaken and reported through to Executive Directors and informal Cabinet, and he drew attention to Appendix B which set out the risk exposure at the start of June 2024, at which time there were 10 strategic risks on the register, further details of which were contained in Appendix C.  He reminded Members of the Committee that they could, at any time, request to have a more detailed examination of any of the strategic risks and could invite the relevant risk owner to provide more details on how the risk was being managed.

He went on to describe operational and project risks, set out in Appendices D-F.  In terms of opportunity risk management, this was reviewed on an annual basis in order to ensure that the Council was taking advantage of every opportunity possible and then managing them in the same way as other risks in order to support the key priorities and objectives set out in the Shropshire Plan.

As a final point, the Service Director for Strategy reported that a Risk Management audit for 2024-2025 had been undertaken by the Internal Audit team who had issued a reasonable assurance level as there was generally a sound system of control in place but there was evidence of non-compliance with some of the controls predominantly around the management of project related risks. The recommendations made within the report had all now been actioned by the team.

In response to a query, the Service Director for Strategy confirmed that the numbers set out in the Project Risk Matrix indicated the number of risks within that allotted likelihood and impact.

In response to a further query, the Service Director for Strategy explained that Health and Safety at work would be cross cutting across the authority but that the Health and Safety team would have their own risk register, and if deemed significant enough they could be escalated to become a strategic risk.

Concern was raised that there was no specific strategic risk of the authority failing to meet a statutory obligation and it was queried how that was managed.  In response, the Section 151 Officer explained that that was part of the review that was undertaken on a bi-annual basis.  He informed the meeting that the new senior team (which had replaced the previous individual directorates) were going through each of the strategic risks listed in Appendix C, one by one on a weekly basis to ensure that they were fully aware and cognisant of the issues.  Following that review, a workshop would be held whereby the overall position in terms of risk would be assessed and he gave an example.

In response to a further query, the Section 151 Officer stated that although the number of strategic risks was slightly lower than in previous years, the status of those risks was significantly higher than they had been.

A brief discussion ensued in relation to the response given to the public question about the increased risk of ‘failure of officers to adhere to governance arrangements’.  The Section 151 Officer reiterated that although the likelihood of that happening was increasing, that did not mean that it was happening.  In terms of the risks around voluntary and compulsory redundancies, he explained that they would look at what was needed in order to manage the overall risk, and would decide which posts were needed in the structure and which posts were not (and would therefore be compulsorily redundant), and in that case the risk had been taken into account.  Whereas with voluntary redundancy, staff members decide that they are willing to go, for whatever reason, so there was no control over who wished to go.  They did however have control over whether they would be allowed to go which was how that risk would be mitigated. 

RESOLVED:

To note the contents of the report and the risk position.