Agenda item

Report of the Chamberlain.

The Committee received a report of the Chamberlain, which outlined the key findings in respect of an external review of Risk Management in the City of London Corporation (CoLC). Members commended an interesting report and agreed with the 6 areas for potential improvement identified in the health check report. 

The Consultant was invited to present the key findings as follows:

• The Consultant had enjoyed a good level of engagement and found officers to be honest, open and candid; a good reflection of the CoLC’s approach to Risk Management. 

• Members highlighted the need to develop an understanding of the CoLC’s risk appetite and suggested that it should be encouraging a more risk talking culture. The Chamberlain indicated that this would be fed into the discussions at the Summit Group, as part of wider consideration of the culture of the organisation. He also suggested that risk appetite needs to be considered in the context of individual services and departments; i.e. safeguarding would have a low risk appetite but it could be higher in areas where there might be opportunities for income generation.

• There was some disappointment expressed at the level of response to the on-line survey, of 48.5%, but Members noted that this had been limited by several factors; including the time of year, the lead in time and the fact that it had not been mandatory.  However, the Chairman reiterated and Members agreed, that there should be an expectation on staff to participate in such surveys and the Committee had pushed for this to be mandatory in some cases; i.e. fraud awareness.  The Chamberlain agreed that this would be taken into account and the level of expectation would be raised for the next survey.  However, the Chamberlain would not want this to detract from the positive aspects of the report. 

RESOLVED, that:

1.       The contents of the report and Members comments from this meeting be noted.

2.       The Committee receive an action plan for approval, based upon the recommendations in the report, in February 2017.