Agenda item

The following item of urgent business was raised –

New Report template

Given the clear need to reemphasise the importance of financial discipline, the Chairman advised the Committee that he had been in discussions with officers about amending the Report template that came to Committees. Reports requesting funding were, on too many occasions, still being submitted without a clear narrative about the source of funding.

With the absence of a clear and upfront narrative, there is a significant risk that Members will give their approval for projects/programmes where there is an inherent source-of-funding issue.

As such, officers have drafted a new version of the Report template; the changes to the previous iteration are in the top box, namely, four new extra inserted lines below the Subject heading, and the insertion of a paragraph directly below the top box, outlining the expectations on Report authors.

The Chairman asked the Committee clerk to circulate the new template to Finance Committee members asking for views and feedback. The aim then was to roll out the new template for use by all Report authors.