Issue - meetings

The Committee had before it a report by Alex Stephen which provided the Committee with an opportunity to comment on and approve in principle the annual governance statement. The report also requested that the Committee provide assurances to Aberdeen City Council and NHS Grampian on the governance framework.

The report recommended:-

That the Committee –

(a)       Comment on the draft annual governance statement, as set out in Appendix 1,

Additionally, on the proviso that no significant weaknesses impacting on the IJB’s governance framework are identified in the assurances received by Aberdeen City Council, NHS Grampian and the IJB’s internal auditors:

(b)       Delegate authority to the Chief Finance Officer to complete the governance statement and provide responses to Aberdeen City Council and NHS Grampian that reasonable assurance can be placed upon the adequacy and effectiveness of the Aberdeen City IJB’s systems of governance.

Alex Stephen advised that the Governance Statement would be produced annually and performance would be measured against CIPFA’s principles of good governance. He explained that there was a degree of complexity in receiving and providing assurance on IJB governance as any significant IJB governance issues may need to be reflected in ACC and NHSG governance statements; similarly the IJBs reliance on some of ACC and NHSG policies and procedures may require any significant weaknesses identified in their controls to be reflected in the IJB’s governance statement.

Thereafter the Committee discussed whether more explicit reference could be made to the Partnership’s transformation agenda and if these could be aligned with the CIPFA principles. The Chief Officer highlighted that transformation was cited in Principle 3 and Principle 5 but noted that the Executive Team would be happy to look at this again to provide additional assurance.

The Chair noted that the Governance Statement was well constructed and no significant weaknesses had been identified by the Committee. He advised that at this stage the Committee was duly assured on the robustness of the IJB’s governance arrangements and thanked Mr Stephen for his work in producing all the financial and governance documents presented at today’s meeting.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)        to delegate authority to the Chief Finance Officer to complete the governance statement and provide responses to Aberdeen City Council and NHS Grampian that reasonable assurance can be placed upon the adequacy and effectiveness of the Aberdeen City IJB’s systems of governance;

(ii)       to thank Alex Stephen for his work in preparing the financial and governance documentation; and

(iii)       otherwise note the report.