Mr Paul Rock, Head of Internal Audit, Fraud and Risk presented the Council’s Annual Governance Statement. Mr Rock said the Annual Governance Statement was a requirement of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 and should reflect the CIPFA/SOLACE principles on Delivering Good Governance in Local Government Framework. The Council was required to undertake a review of its corporate governance processes, systems and give assurances on the governance framework.

The Annual Governance Statement needs to be signed by the Chief Executive and the Mayor by the agreed statutory deadline. However Mr Bartle said that the signing may need to be delayed in light of the draft accounts not being complete.

In response to questions from Members the following was noted:

·         Discussion took place regarding the Annual Governance Statement and if this should be approved by the Committee.

·         Councillor Marc Francis said that whilst the statement looked at the Governance structures in Tower Hamlets, the model adopted by the Council had issues in the early days and there was evidence the structures and processes in decision making were not tight enough and this needed to be recognised. Councillor Francis gave an example of where confused governance was in place, with no clear decision making pathway. Mr Rock thanked Councillor Francis for his comments and said he would look into this further.

o   ACTION: Members requested the Statement be revised to better reflect the constitution and current decision making processes.

The Committee RESOLVED to:

1.    NOTE the report and comments of Members and will review the Annual Governance Statement at its next meeting.