Agenda item

Request for a Delegated Authority

The Chairman advised of 4 sets of charity accounts, which were being finalised by the auditors, and would need to be signed off by the Chamberlain and the Chairman/Deputy Chairman of the Finance Committee.

Members noted that two of them had been circulated as part of the papers in January 2023 but CLS Bursary & Awards Fund and CLSG Bursary Fund were still being finalised. These audits were finally drawing to a close and officers requested that they be presented to the Audit and Risk Management Committee under Urgency for scrutiny, ahead of sign off by the Finance Committee.

RESOLVED, that – authority to sign off the above accounts be delegated to the Town Clerk, in consultation with the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Finance Committee.

Governance Update

The Town Clerk advised that, following approval by the Policy and Resources Committee in March 2023, the Annual Meeting of the Court of Common Council on 27th April 2023 will recommend that the Property Investment Board and the Financial Investment Board are merged to form one ‘Grand’ Committee, to be named ‘the Investment Committee’. To ensure continuity in a critical period, it will also be recommended that those currently sitting on the two bodies carry over their Membership into 2023/24. 

Initially, it had been proposed that Operational Property and Projects Sub Committee should cease to be a joint sub reporting both to the Finance and Policy and Resources Committees and simply become a sub of Finance. Whilst this approach was generally supported, it had been overtaken by a  decision taken by the Policy and Resources Committee to commission a significant wider review into projects governance.

The reduction in quorum requested of 7 Members, down from 9, was supported.