Issue - meetings

An annual review of the Council’s Whistleblowing Policy and Anti-Fraud & Corruption Policy has taken place to ensure they are updated in line with best practice and legislation.

Best practice suggests both policies should be approved by Audit & Governance Committee.

Some minor amendments have been made to both policies including reformatting to corporate BCP requirements.

A key change to the Anti-Fraud & Corruption Policy has been made with the addition of the Criminal Finances Act (CFA) 2017 Requirements policy appendix. This is to ensure the Council is able to demonstrate adequate procedures are in place to prevent the corporate criminal offence of facilitating tax evasion.

A new Declaration of Interests, Gifts & Hospitality Policy has been created and approved by the Corporate Management Board.

This policy was previously seen in draft form by the Audit & Governance committee at its 23 January 2020 meeting and the resulting comments and suggestions have been incorporated.

The Head of Audit and Management Assurance presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'C' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

An annual review of the Council’s Whistleblowing Policy and Anti-Fraud & Corruption Policy had taken place to ensure that the policies were updated in line with best practice and with legislation and best practice also suggested that both policies should be approved by Audit & Governance Committee.

The Committee was reminded that the Whistleblowing Policy sought to enable individuals to feel confident in raising concerns that were in the public interest about suspected serious wrongdoing. The purpose of the Anti-Fraud & Corruption Policy was to highlight relevant legislation and set out the Council’s approach.

Some minor amendments had been made to both policies including reformatting to align with corporate BCP requirements.

A key change to the Anti-Fraud & Corruption Policy was the addition of a Criminal Finances Act (CFA) 2017 Requirements policy appendix. This would ensure the Council was able to demonstrate adequate procedures were in place to prevent the corporate criminal offence of facilitating tax evasion.

A new Declaration of Interests, Gifts & Hospitality Policy had been created and approved by the Corporate Management Board. This policy was previously seen in draft form by the Audit & Governance committee at it’s 23 January 2020 meeting and the resulting comments and suggestions had been incorporated.

The Chairman of the Committee thanked the Head of Audit and Management Assurance and his team for the considerable work put in to ensuring that these policies and others elsewhere on the agenda were maintained at an effective standard.

RESOLVED that the Audit and Governance Committee

a)    approve the Whistleblowing Policy and the Anti-Fraud & Corruption Policy; and

b)    endorse the Declaration of Interests, Gifts & Hospitality Policy as approved by the Corporate Management Board.

Voting: Unanimous.