Issue - meetings

Q2 Risk Report

 

 

Meeting: 17/11/2022 - Governance and Audit Committee (Item 24)

24 Q2 Risk Report 2022/2023 pdf icon PDF 264 KB

To provide an update on the Councils strategic risks for the period 1st July 2022 to 30th September 2022 (report of the Interim Assistant Director - Governance enclosed).

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Consideration was given to the report of the Assistant Director – Corporate to provide an update on the Council’s strategic risks for the period 1 July 2022 to 30 September 2022.

 

The Senior Change and Performance Business Partner provided the Committee with the following updates:

 

  • The report included risks which related to the South and East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership (S&ELCP) at Appendix B. This element had been included at the request of the Governance and Audit Committee.

 

  • Whilst there had not been any changes to risk scores in the current iteration, the following updates to ICT controls and mitigations had taken place:

 

In respect of risk relating to a cyber incident:

  • PSPS had been successful in its application for a grant from the Department for Levelling-Up to improve the security position of the three partnership councils;
  • the maximum grant of £175,000 had been secured;
  • an action plan would be developed to improve cyber security and infrastructure; and
  • the action plan needed to adhere to caveats stipulated by the award.

 

In respect of risk relating to ICT infrastructure:

o   the risk had been moved onto the Strategic Risk Register;

o   the risk scoring had not changed; an increased risk had been considered after the outage in September 2022, and whilst the risk had been elevated at the time of incident, the likelihood of reoccurrence in the future had not changed; and

o   a Major Incident review had been conducted and was in the process of being shared with the ICT Strategy Board, Senior Leadership Team and Portfolio Holder. The review considered resiliency options that may be used to lower the risk scoring in the future.

 

 

Members considered the report and made the following comments:

 

  • The ‘retention of staff’ risk had been duplicated.

 

  • Members discussed the risks that related to both economic downturn and economic hardship (on agenda pages 47 and 54 respectively):
    • members referred to ‘economic downturn’ risk and noted that since the report was produced, a number of companies in the district had announced closures/ceased trading. Potential redundancies would have a significant impact on the local economy. The Committee strongly determined the risk rating of 3 to be too low and requested that this opinion be communicated to relevant officers;
    • members also referred to the ‘economic hardship’ risk and requested further details regarding the ‘working with landlords’ mitigation; and
    • members queried the impact that economic hardship would have on the partnership lottery.

The Senior Change and Performance Business Partner responded that:

  • all of the issues that related to economic downturn and economic hardship would be raised with Growth Directors;
  • The economic downturn risk would be reviewed; and
  • The economic hardship risk would be developed.

 

  • Members welcomed the chart on page 41 of the agenda which outlined how risks were graded and managed.

 

  • Members requested that Appendix A and Appendix B be clearly separated in future iterations.