The Committee received a report updating them of developments in Corporate Risk Management during the period 1 January to 31 March 2018 in compliance with the requirements of good corporate governance.

The Action Plan for the delivery of the Development Objectives for 2017/18 incorporating progress to date was appended to the main report and the Committee were advised that work is progressing as per the plan and further details about the specific areas are covered below:

·         All of the operational risks on the Operational Risk register have been reviewed.

·         The annual review of Business Continuity Plans and Service Impact Assessments have been completed and all Services have reviews their plans and impact assessments.

·         The Risk Management and Business Continuity Policies have been reviewed and updated to reflect organisational changes

The Committee were advised that the draft Strategic Risk Register was presented to Corporate Management Team to ensure all risks and controls have been included and are accurate and up to date.  It was agreed that all strategic risks have been identified and included within the draft register, however a review of some planned controls was requested to ensure that they effectively mitigate the identified risks.

It was also agreed that the Strategic Risk Register should be amended to reference the Council’s Thrive Agenda, once approved by Council.

Following the approval of the Council’s Thrive Agenda in March, the Strategic Risk Register has been updated and the Senior Office Risk Management Group have met to ensure the risks and controls are updated to reflect the work which has taken place since the previous review.

Further consultation will take place on the draft Strategic Register prior to it being finalised and reported to the Committee for consideration.

The Committee were also advised that a new crime has been introduced in the Criminal Finance Act 2017, the failure to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion, which took effect from 30 September 2017. To ensure the Council has mitigated the risks associated with the Act risk assessments have been completed and the results collated into a risk register, which was then presented to the Risk and Resilience Group.

The outcome of the assessment was that the Council has sufficient controls in place to mitigate the risk arising from the Act and the main action arising from the risk assessment is relating to the wider communication of the Act. In response to this finding a Tackling Tax Evasion Statement has been written which documents the Councils approach to tackling tax evasion and its commitment to preventing anyone facilitating tax evasion. It details the risk assessment process and how anyone suspecting someone of facilitating tax evasion can report their concerns.

The Committee were advised that the statement has also been reported to the Risk and Resilience Group for comment and will now be communicated to all employees and Councillors. A copy of the statement and the risk assessment were appended to the main report for information.

The Risk and Resilience Group met on 25 April and the following items were discussed:

·         Risk Management and Business Continuity Plans:

o   Update on the changes to the draft Strategic Risk Register

o   Annual review of operations risk registers

o   Annual review of business continuity plans

o   Completion of risk register and publications of a policy statement relating to the Criminal Finance Act 2017.

·         Resilience and Emergency Planning:

o   Corporate Resources OSC – six monthly update for April 2018

o   Update on Pandemic Influenza Plan

o   Update on Counter Terrorism Plans Review

It was also suggested that further Risk Management training for Councillors and officers appropriate to their responsibilities be rolled out