Agenda item

This report provides the Committee with an update on the Council’s Strategic Risks as of September 2023. The update has been prepared in consultation with risk leads and the Council Management Team and summarises the risks that are considered to be of an impact and/or likelihood of materialising, and which may have an adverse effect on the achievement of the Council’s corporate objectives. The report also presents the Committee with a new Risk Management Strategy. The strategy seeks to outline the Council’s approach to risk management to support a robust and consistent process for managing risk and opportunities.

Darren Armstrong, Head of Audit & Investigation, introduced the report providing the Committee with an update on the Council’s Strategic Risks as of September 2023 and the new Risk Management Strategy that outlined the Council’s approach to risk management to support a robust and consistent process for managing risk and opportunities.

In considering the report the Committee noted:

• The Strategic Risk Register had been prepared in consultation with risk leads, Departmental Management, Senior Leadership Teams and the Council’s Management Team in accordance with the key elements of the Council’s Risk Management Policy and Strategy.
• Since the report was last updated in February 2023, the Council had continued to operate in a heightened risk environment due to several external factors that included the unstable economic climate and the Cost of Living crisis.
• The Committee’s attention was drawn to Appendix 1 - Strategic Risk Register that detailed the four new risks that had been added to the Strategic Risk Report, one of which reflected the growing demand from homeless households coupled with the lack of affordable accommodation that had resulted in the increased use of costly emergency temporary accommodation. The three further risks identified within the Strategic Risk Report (Risk E – Non -compliance with statutory housing duties, Risk G – Serious child protection incident or wider safeguarding concern and Risk H – Safeguarding incident – Adults) had previously been held on departmental risk registers as inherent risks. The Committee noted that Risks E – H were not new risks nor had they been escalated due to increased risk scores; they had been added to reflect a change in the Council’s risk management approach as part of ongoing efforts to continue to improve and enhance the Council’s risk management framework.
• The new Risk Management Strategy – Appendix 2 had been produced in response to a previous recommendation made in an external assessment and was felt to be significantly improved from the previous strategy in place with the addition of a Risk Appetite Statement and a comprehensive resource guide to risk management in Brent.

The Chair thanked Darren Armstrong for his report and invited Committee members to ask any questions they may have, with the following responses provided:

• In response to a Committee query in relation to how the risk of the overspend for temporary accommodation could be mitigated, the Committee was advised that with the overspend projected to be £13m it would be reported in the Q2 forecast report and taken to Cabinet with a report that would detail the range of actions the Council could take to relieve the pressures in the short and longer term.
• In response to a Committee query in relation to whether risks were benchmarked against other local authorities, it was confirmed that reviewing of the risk register framework was regularly compared with colleagues from other Council’s to look for common themes and share best practice, additionally, Councillor M.Butt, Leader of the Council advised that Cabinet Members regularly met with their counterparts across London to share intelligence and examine data trends.
• The Committee was advised that future iterations of the Strategic Risk Register would include enhancements to the key risk indicators to include additional context to support the Committee’s understanding of the specific risks.

·         Following a query in relation to how the Committee would receive assurances over other key risk areas that weren’t reflected in the Strategic Risk Register, including Climate Change and revenue risks, Darren Armstrong, Head of Audit & Investigation, advised that this would be taken as a forward action to consider how these risks could be included in future updates to the Committee.

In closing the discussion on the item, the Chair advised Committee members to check that they were satisfied with the risks identified in the Risk Appetite Statement (2.3 of the report) and requested that any comments or adjustments in relation to the Risk Appetite Statement were emailed to Darren Armstrong.  As there were no further questions on the item the Chair extended his thanks on behalf of the Committee to Darren Armstrong and his team for providing what the Committee felt was a highly informative and comprehensive report. 

The Committee RESOLVED to note the report provided.