Agenda item

There is currently a varied legacy of inherited (from previous Councils) parks governance arrangements and there is a case to seek to simplify and reduce these variations for the sake of clarity, efficiency and effectiveness.  Some arrangements have origins in Acts or Agreements that cannot be ignored or replaced without proper legal and financial due diligence, options appraisal and decision made at the appropriate level.

Some governance arrangements, such as Board meetings for the Lower Gardens Trust, have been impacted by the covid 19 pandemic and have not yet been reintroduced although a provisional date is now being sought for December 2021

Where charitable accounts are required, they have been produced, externally audited and submitted to the Charity Commission.

Separately the grant-funded Future Parks Accelerator Project will develop a range of options for the Council to consider, as to how parks could be governed and maintained for the wider benefit and use by communities for generations to come.     

The Monitoring Officer agrees with the Environment Service that external support is required to support a legal focused review of existing parks governance arrangements in BCP.

Although not yet finalised, the overall opinion of the recently conducted internal audit work is likely to be one of ‘Partial Assurance’ meaning there are weaknesses in the control framework which are putting service objectives at risk.  Confirmation of the final opinion will be reported to Audit & Governance Committee in the Internal Audit Quarterly Update Report at the 13 January 2022 meeting.

The Interim Director of Environment and 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 'B' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The Committee was reminded of the presentation received in June 2021 and a further copy of the accompanying slides had been circulated with the agenda. This provided background to the variety of inherited parks governance arrangements inherited from the BCP Council legacy Councils. Each of these was set out and explained and it was clear that there was a case to seek to simplify and reduce these variations for the sake of clarity, efficiency and effectiveness.

Some arrangements were explained to have origins in Acts or Agreements that could not be ignored or replaced without proper legal and financial due diligence, options appraisal and decision made at the appropriate level. Other governance arrangements, such as Board meetings for the Lower Gardens Trust, had been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic but it was nevertheless accepted that these bodies should properly have been meeting and apologies for this were offered. It was reported that, in the case of the Lower Gardens Trust particularly, and as a matter of urgency, a meeting of the Trust Board was being arranged to take place during December.

There was agreement that stronger parks governance arrangements was a priority although there was reassurance and recognition that the parks service was being well managed and delivered and attracting high levels of recorded customer satisfaction in excess of the national figures.

A number of specific issues had been identified by the Committee in June for further investigation and report and at that time the Monitoring Officer was also requested to provide an opinion upon the current arrangements.

In parallel, it was also reported by the Head of Audit & Management Assurance that the scope of an internal audit review already taking place had been refocussed with a wider scope to take account of Councillors’ comments. The summary of these internal audit findings were set out with the agenda and, although not yet finalised, the overall opinion of the audit was likely to be one of ‘Partial Assurance’ identifying some weaknesses in the control framework which may put service objectives at risk. The Committee was advised that confirmation of the final position would be reported to the Audit and Governance Committee in January 2022 as part the Internal Audit Quarterly Update Report.

Members of the Committee raised a number of specific questions about funding and the process of bidding for financial support and about the role of the Council. Specific details were provided about the role of ‘The Parks Foundation’ and about how the relationship between BCP Council and the Foundation was set out though a Memorandum of Understanding. Although there were clearly provisions for Council involvement including specifications of the numbers of Councillor and external representatives, the role of the Audit and Governance Committee was to ensure that the arrangement for governance were robust and that there were arrangements for clear oversight by the Council. There was agreement that revisions to the Memorandum needed to be clear and expressed in such a way that the Committee could check and be satisfied about what was being put in place.

The role of the grant-funded Future Parks Accelerator Project was also explained and this was expected to develop a range of options for the Council to consider about how parks could be governed and maintained for the wider benefit and use by communities for future generations.     

The Monitoring Officer was supportive of the review work being undertaking and explained that, due to resources issues preventing the work being undertaken internally, it was proposed to commission an external legally focussed review of the existing arrangements.

RESOLVED that the Audit and Governance Committee

(a)   notes the work underway to confirm the role and relationship between the Parks Foundation and the Council including further due diligence and a review of the Memorandum of Understanding;

(b)   supports the view of the Monitoring Officer that legal services commission, in liaison with the Environment Service, a report that assesses all the trust arrangements in place for parks and open spaces across BCP and produces recommendations for modern governance arrangements;

(c)   notes that a further report on these governance arrangements and suggestions for the way forward will be considered by a future meeting of the Committee before any changes to arrangements are implemented.

Voting: Unanimous