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Governance & Audit Committee
Thursday, 8th October 2026 at 10:00am

 
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  1. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  2. Meg Williams Committee Services Officer
  3. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
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  1. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  2. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  3. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  4. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  5. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  6. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  7. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  8. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  9. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  10. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  11. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  12. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  13. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  14. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  15. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  16. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  17. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  18. Cllr David Dews
  19. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  20. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  21. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  22. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  23. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  24. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  25. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  26. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
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  1. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  2. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  3. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  4. Cllr David Dews
  5. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  6. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  7. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  8. Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
  9. Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  10. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  11. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  12. Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
  13. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  14. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  15. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  16. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  17. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  18. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  19. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  20. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  21. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  22. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  23. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  24. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  25. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  26. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  27. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  28. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  29. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  30. Cllr Cllr Simon Brophy Kirklees Council
  31. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  32. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  33. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  34. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  35. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  36. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  37. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  38. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  39. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  40. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  41. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  42. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  43. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  44. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  45. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  46. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  47. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  48. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  49. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  50. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  51. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  52. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  53. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  54. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  55. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  56. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  57. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  58. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  59. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
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  1. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  2. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  3. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  4. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  5. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  6. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  7. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  8. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  9. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  10. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  11. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  12. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  13. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  14. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  15. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  16. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  17. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  18. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  19. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  20. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  21. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  22. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  23. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  24. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  25. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  26. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  27. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  28. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  29. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  30. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  31. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  32. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
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  1. Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  2. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  3. Cllr David Jenkins CA Member
  4. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  5. Cllr David Jenkins CA Member
  6. Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  7. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  8. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  9. Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  10. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  11. Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  12. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  13. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  14. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
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  1. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  2. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  3. Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
  4. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  5. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  6. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  7. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  8. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  9. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  10. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
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  1. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  2. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  3. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  4. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  5. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  6. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  7. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  8. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  9. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  10. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  11. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  12. Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member
  13. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  14. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  15. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  16. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  17. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  18. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  19. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  20. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  21. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
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  1. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  2. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  3. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  4. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  5. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  6. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  7. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  8. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  9. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  10. Cllr David Jenkins CA Member
  11. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  12. Cllr David Jenkins CA Member
  13. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  14. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  15. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  16. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  17. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  18. Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  19. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  20. David Merrett (Independent Member)
  21. Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  22. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  23. Alastair Newall (Auditor) Mazars
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  1. Mr Makhosi Mazibia (Auditor) Mazars
  2. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  3. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  4. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  5. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  6. Alastair Newall (Auditor) Mazars
  7. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  8. Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer
  9. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  10. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  11. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  12. Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member
  13. Alastair Newall (Auditor) Mazars
  14. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  15. Cllr David Jenkins CA Member
  16. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
  17. Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority
  18. Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member)
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  1. Webcast Finished

1 Apologies for Absence

Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:00:15
Right, morning everybody and welcome to governance and audits.
The meeting is being live streamed.
So agenda item one is apologies for absence.
Have we got any apologies?
Meg Williams Committee Services Officer - 0:00:30
We have apologies from Councillor Cohen, Rob Winter, Councillor Brophy, Councillor Khan
and Councillor Taylor. Not Brophy. I apologise.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:00:41
Okay. Thank you. Agenda item two, declarations of interest.
Has anyone got anything they would like to declare? No? Thank you if you can note that.

2 Declarations of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests

And agenda item three is the exempt information and exclusions.

3 Exempt Information - Possible Exclusion of the Press and Public

There are no exempt matters at all on this agenda today.
And agenda item four is minutes of the meeting and governance committee held on the 2nd of July.

4 Minutes of the Meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee held 2 July 2026.

So has anyone got any comments or anything they want to raise, matters, points of note on those?
There's one thing I would like to follow up on, if I may, then.
On the agenda item 6 on those minutes, the committee requested cycle of business and
the meeting frequency in terms of reference were reviewed and brought back to a future
meeting for consideration.

5 Integrated Assurance Framework

So I'm going to suggest things, we haven't got those today, that we form that as part
of an agenda item for November where we look at the terms of reference, cycle of business,
et cetera, and just make sure that we all feel that we're getting the information we
need to when we need to. So if committee members support that, I'll
work on that and get something to put together with officers.
Is that okay? Yes, Councillor Greenwood.
Okay. Councillor Greenwood, you're absolutely right.
With the amendments, do you accept the amendments that have been made by the chair?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:02:17
So if colleagues could, if members could please vote to agree the minutes so there is a record
that those are accepted. All those in favour?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:02:23
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:02:29
Lovely, thank you. So moving on to agenda item 5, that's the Integrated Assurance
Framework. It's a report which presents a proposed Integrated Assurance Framework and
quite a number of asks on the Committee here, but mainly to review and comment on the Integrated
Framework and its overall direction, and to note the proposed governance arrangements
supporting delivery and development and also to endorse the framework as a key component
of the combined authorities governance and assurance arrangement.
So any questions or Nicky do you want to introduce it first and then we'll move to questions.
I'm happy for members to take the report as read but given some of the members are previously
on this board there was a clear direction not only from members but also as part of
our PWC report through the integrated settlement, that it's important that we assemble an integrated
assurance framework. And by that, it's to look at all of the assurance activities that
are undertaken within the organisation so that you've got an organisational systematic
review of what is happening. This aligns itself with the three lines of defence and ensures
that we're following all of the established processes that are required by law within
guidance against those three lines of defence. Now what you'll see is the framework sets
out what the intention is in relation to how we consolidate that data because at the moment
we're having a lot of information being presented across the organisation but part of it is
So the assurance activity is absolutely there but we are reporting it in a sort of a matrix
arrangement going across different boards and this seeks to consolidate it.
The framework doesn't just present the data, what sits underneath that is a working group
which we're proposing to establish so that we have got people working and looking at
the controls and the levels of assurance and whether they are adequate, whether there's
whether there is a lack of assurance or whether there needs to be a higher degree. Now this
framework and assurance activity is owned by Corporate Board and the management team
for this organisation and that will be the overview and G &A you have that overview of
how we're working and the working group will bring back its findings, its themes and what's
working and what isn't so you have a whole spectrum and sphere of what's happening in
the organisation. So it draws it all together. It is the first iteration, so it is work in
progress, it isn't the finished article, but I think it's absolutely the right direction
for the organisation to go in, given the more responsibilities that we have got now and
also what's coming down the line, and equally in relation to the complexity and growth of
programmes that we're expected to drive now through rewiring of state. So I'm happy to
take any questions, but I hope that provides a fair introduction.
Thank you, Liki. Any questions? Dave?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:05:35
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 0:05:39
Yes, two points really. One we've raised before, I think, which is I'd like to understand how
we think it's appropriate that our apparently independent third line reports to the second
line how that actually works in practise. I mean, the framework is great here, and you
want an independent third line from the second line, but our third line does report day to
day through the second line. The second point is the working group is great. I would have
I would have expected this committee to have seen the terms of reference and approved the
terms of reference for that working group so we understand what they're doing and we're
comfortable with what they're doing and it's good to hear that they'll be reporting back
presumably to us and others that visibility but I would have expected to see a terms of
reference in advance so we can see what we're actually tasked with doing.
You're absolutely right. Those terms of reference are being developed. What we wanted to do
was not presumed what we should be putting down in those terms of reference. I do accept,
David, that it would have been helpful to see a draught but we wanted to gather some updates
from you or comments so that we are driving this in the right direction. So we can certainly
bring back a draught to you. We've got a meeting next month so we can assemble that and we're
putting call outs after this meeting for that working group.
Okay, questions. Councillor CUMMING.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:06:51
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:06:58
In Appendix 2, you've got low, medium and high. What do you actually gage as low? What do you actually gage as medium? What do you actually gage as high?
It's all fair enough saying this is medium, but what does medium mean?
So in relation to that, we want to, this is, that's a fair question, we want to gage the level of activity and the expertise that's been deployed within that assurance.
Low would indicate that it's not being done sufficiently robustly, medium is where there's areas to improve, and high is where we think that there would be insurance activity might be over and above what it needs to be.
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:07:33
So that's what we're doing at the moment. Are we developing that in relation to discussions with various departments?
So that gives you an assurance of, yeah it's being assured, but what assurances are you making under that topic?
You've got a project there, so what assurances are being made when you're saying it's high in assurance?
So this is in relation to each department saying this is what we do in relation to each of these projects or schemes that are coming through and that's the activity they're under?
So assurance that they're actually been running as expected.
And the actual original project was the terms of that project, the assurances there.
Yeah, so you do a cross -bac and cheque.
And the next one is, if the estimation did not match, will reasons be given why?
An action's been taken in this document, or will it just be, we know it's not, we're going to work on it?
So I think what we'd like to do is if we identify an area where it's not working,
the processes of working effectively
and the actions that have been undertaken,
it's the responsibility of the working group
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:08:38
to identify those issues and then scale it
through corporate board and the management
to take direct ownership of that.
And that's where that will be tracked
through corporate board management activity
but also reported down and then back up to you as well
so that you can see if that intervention
was effective or not.
Thanks.
And as part of the assurance, I presume,
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:09:09
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:09:25
is the first line of Cond inverse, the second line of change between records and the paymentbledon
right?
for what? Because I was just slightly surprised when I just took one line, the fraud line,
that that isn't a wider accountability.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:09:46
In terms of organisational?
Can I go over to Bron just to sort of help with that wider and the aspects of interplay
between the two lines?
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:09:58
And I think that is the point. We've broken it down into the lines of defence so you can
see where we get specific assurances from. That does not replace an overarching assurance
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 0:10:13
over a particular project, over a particular – for Kate's team, for example, over financial
controls generally. It's an indicator of where the assurances currently sit in those
different lines of defence. What the integrated assurance workstream should do is bring that
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:10:28
together into actually there are other assurances.
So maybe we're doing too much here
in this bit, this second line of defence.
It is literally about adjusting your assurances
to get not over -engineered, not under -engineered, so that you've
got the right level.
It isn't to substitute, though, for overall assurance.
These are just literally under the lines of defence.
It's a map.
That's all it is.
I keep saying to people, this is not the end game.
The assurance map is not the end game.
It's a tool.
and actually what you really want to look at is the dashboard that comes out of the
integrated assurance to give you that overall view end to end.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:11:07
Thanks Bron and I think, I mean I'm really pleased to see this come together because
it's taken a lot of work to get it here and I think it should be extremely useful so I
think it's a really good opportunity for this committee to think how we can use this to
best effect and maybe again come back to that at the November meeting because this should
helping form our cycle of business
and where we're going to get assurance from.
So I think if we can all spend some time reflecting on it
between now and November, I think it'd be extremely helpful.
And does anybody want any further,
separate session on it or anything like that
to help with the understanding of how it's been built
and the intentions behind it?
Yeah?
Yeah, I think there's general agreement there,
so if you pop that down as an action.
Did you want to come in, Councillor Gies?
.
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 0:12:18
Cllr David Dews CA Member - 0:12:21
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:12:36
Sorry, Councillor Gee, I think you are on a different page in the agenda.
I thought this was the insurance framework.
No, we are on the integrated insurance.
Unfortunately we have lots of very similar names in our frameworks and documents and
I get equally confused.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:13:00
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 0:13:02
Just a quick question, when might we be able to get the first proper working dashboard
in front of us?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:13:10
I will try my best to get this all ready as soon as I possibly can.
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:13:19
It certainly won't be ready by the next meeting, which is next month, but clearly in the new
year that's something that we'd like to do.
Yes.
I don't want to commit to something that I can't deliver.
Okay, thank you.
Any other questions on that agenda item?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:13:36
So we've got an action there to come back to it and to receive further information at
the next meeting. That's lovely, thank you. Can we just take a vote on the recommendation?
Just so that that's recorded. So can we vote on the recommendation, please?
I'll bring it up. Thank you. So it's review and comment on the proposed integrated sure
and frame which is done to note the proposed governance arrangements, including the establishment
of an integrated working group and the ongoing development. So there's quite a lot in there.
And then to endorse the principles and direction of travel sets out with the Integrated Assurance
Framework as a key component of the combined authorities' governance and assurance arrangements.
So if we could take a vote to endorse the principles and direction of travel, please.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:14:41
All in favour? Okay, that's unanimous, thank you.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:14:49
Thank you. So the gender item 6, this is the West Yorkshire Local Assurance Framework annual

6 West Yorkshire Local Assurance Framework (LAF), Annual Review 2026

review. So this is progress on the review and a refresh of the framework and to seek
approval of the latest draught in advance of its submission to government. This work has
been considered, has considered feedback from MHCLG in its development and comments on this
were provided to GNA already, but this is another opportunity to have a look at it.
So has any, well Councillor De Joes, did you want to come in on your points on this one?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:15:28
I know we have had a workshop, really great to have done that and I think just before
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:15:36
I start just to extend another invitation if we do want to do another workshop at a
later stage then the offer is there from the team to support in this area. There is quite
a lot of complex activity taking place as part of the assurance framework. So I think
As the paper outlines, the first West Yorkshire life was developed in 2015.
It's part of the growth deal with government.
So this is very much linked to the work that we're doing with government
and in terms of our allocation of funding.
And it's to give that assurance that the necessary systems and processes are in place
to kind of enable us to manage funding effectively,
but also to help us successfully deliver against our range of plans.
So kind of really important.
We are required by government to have an approved local assurance framework in place.
It is something we need to do and we do liaise quite closely with government on a regular
basis to make sure we are evolving and iterating the report as the report stage.
This is a live document, it changes and obviously over the last year the receipt of the integrated
settlement has meant we have had to adapt and amend the local assurance framework to
make sure that it's fit for purpose.
So through the English G evolution accountability
framework, the government sets out the expectation
that we are looking at this on an annual basis.
And as you'll see in the report, the last version
that we've been working to was in 2025.
We submitted that to MHLG and it added a small number of changes
but they weren't deemed to be substantial
so it didn't need to go through a formal approval process.
It was really just an update.
but they did in that space outline what they thought we might need to put in place to be
ready to receive the integrated settlement. They gave us a number of comments actually
from a range of government departments. This document has been around the government departments
at least once and there have been some changes in government departments so it's had to go
back round again to make sure that they are really feeding in. What you see in the paper
is some of the questions that they have kind of asked, which is kind of how and when, how
and who will make decisions, particularly within and between each of the integrated
settlement themes.
So they're really interested in kind of that movement of funds and how that works, and
that's set out now in the document.
Also about how large investment transport programmes are delivered through that kind
of single settlement structure.
The requirement for us to kind of have six monthly monitoring reports for the integrated
programme board so as colleagues might be aware as part of the work that we're
doing on the integrated settlement now we have to report to government on a six
monthly basis through a programme board so that they're wanting us to make
sure in this documentation we're reflecting that in there. Inclusion for
three lines of defence model which we've just been talking about, further detail
on how investment decisions are made and then just kind of a lot of comments from
DFT around aligning to the Green Book Review.
So it's been updated to account for that.
And there's also been something about accessibility
to the public.
So as part of the work we're doing in integrated settlement,
there is a transparency issue.
So how are we making sure that what we're doing is visible
and that the general public can see what we're doing.
So part of that is around making sure
that our documents are accessible
and that people can understand the language.
It is quite complicated.
So we have done some of that work
to try and make this a little bit more in plain English.
In addition to that feedback, we've been doing a lot of work
around trying to make sure that this process is
agile and flexible.
It can sometimes be perceived to be kind of bureaucratic,
because people have to go through various stages
depending upon what their project is, because all projects
will come through the assurance programme at some point.
And we take different views depending upon what
the scale of the project is.
It's really important that we get that balance right between being agile and flexible
But but also making sure that we're delivering value for more name that we've got quality schemes coming forward
So it is a fine line to make sure that we make it easy for people
So I've done a lot of work to try and building comments and make further revisions and will we are continuing to do that
So we're working with
Directors at the moment to kind of really look at things like proportionate kind of pathways for the work that we're doing to
so that we're not delaying things moving and that we kind of speeding up delivery where we can but they aren't things that we
Necessarily need to put in the local insurance framework that is kind of ways of working in custom and practise that that we need to
Do the laugh is really about the processes that and systems that we've kind of got in place. So the document are not
Run through everything but the document sets out kind of the key changes that we've made as a result of kind of the work
with government
and you'll see there kind of there's a number of
kind of changes that have been made and the documents been updated and the revised draught
is now attached for yourselves. Obviously the workshop session that we had with yourselves
was very helpful in kind of supporting this. I think ideally we would have done the workshop
much earlier and we would have probably fetched the draught to you much earlier to have a look
at and that's something that we'll have a look at for next year in terms of coming back
to you with this before we kind of take it to the combined authority.
I think it is just acknowledging the fact that even though we will sign this off, we
will probably be iterating again over this next year to make sure that it continues to
be fit for purpose.
I will stop there, but I think the next step really is around making sure that we then
submit it to government.
and they could come back with any additional changes that they want to make based on the
changes that we've made and we have got delegated approval through the chief exec to make some
of those changes if need be. But we can always come back and update you on what those changes
are so that you're up to speed with where we've got to. And I'll stop there and just
take any questions that you might have. Thank you Sarah. So I think this is a good opportunity
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:21:39
for the committee to contribute to this work. So has anybody got any comments? Councillor
using Councillor Falstead.
Cllr David Dews CA Member - 0:21:51
Yeah, sorry for getting my assurance frameworks mixed up.
Yeah, there's a lot of detail on the preparation of schemes, which is quite obvious, we need
to get things right before they start.
But I'm aware that delivery periods can be quite long, and with a lot of schemes there
can be changes, additions, things that are unforeseen.
and it just seems that there doesn't seem to be monitoring during this period.
I'm just wondering if there might be some gaps in the framework in that delivery period.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:22:30
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:22:31
I think we do an awful lot of monitoring of projects as they're working their way through the process.
a number of schemes come in different phases, so at the end of each phase that might trigger
a different payment and the things that you're talking about in terms of monitoring kind
of spend and output, they are things that we regularly do as part of our kind of programme
management of the big projects that are coming forward. We also do things like closure reports
and they get kind of reported where they need to in kind of the general governance arrangements.
Some change requests, if they are significant, they would come back to either the investment
board or to the combined Authority board for a decision and certainly where
people are operating above tolerances again that would require a
decision in terms of being able to kind of accept particularly for example where
costs might have increased substantially so we often see schemes coming back
through the governance framework because indeed we are doing that monitoring and
we know that they're not necessarily delivering or there might be some exceptional
circumstances around the costs of items that have changed your scheme.
So those change requests are quite important actually we do keep an eye on
it and what I will do is take away whether or not that's adequately
reflected in the framework and we can certainly pick that up and have a look
whether we need to just insert some paragraphs that kind of outline that in there.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:23:52
Thank you. Do you want to come back a little?
Councillor Felsdur.
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:24:01
Yes, thank you chair. Question about Activity 7 evaluation which is going to be carried
out by the CA's Research and Intelligence team. Now obviously a project has two different
sets of inputs in terms of value for money so you've got the business case, we've also
got the socio -economic case which is dealt with under Green Book, DFT, TAG and MHCLG.
When they carry out the evaluation will that come back in two parts, the actual business
case and the socio -economic to actually measure the two independently of one another because
obviously, to come back to the point that was made earlier, the business case might
not support the decision, the socio -economic part might support the decision, but I think
it's important that we see back to the investment board and perhaps through this committee as
well the two figures with the actual corresponding outputs.
Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:25:28
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:25:31
Did you want to come back on that?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:25:34
So the specific question Sarah was.
Yeah, I'm trying to respond.
Right.
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:25:38
There's a business case which will comprise the actual value for money arrangements, but
part of that value for money arrangement will be the socio -economic impact of the scheme.
So let's assume the business case says there's a 0 .55 % return to every pound we spend, 55p
in exchange.
Then we have the social value weighting which might add another pound to it which takes
over the criteria for funding, do we look at both independently and report those both
back to the investment board and back to this committee?
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:26:33
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:26:51
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:26:58
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:27:15
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:27:54
Nishita is kind enough for you.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:28:04
So I think the key would be actually to point towards the West Yorkshire outcomes framework
because ultimately everything that those schemes are, it says the individual schemes but the
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 0:28:14
sum of the total is ultimately what we are moving the dial on the overall outcomes framework
which is a corresponding then at the moment of some of the outcomes that we all agree
with through various programmes so we have targets attached to our integrated settlement,
we have legacy funds that have targets attached to them and those tear up into that outcomes
framework and that is something Sarah's taken through the CA and that has full
oversight at the moment of what we are doing our activity and how we are doing
that. We are working on
at the moment we are growing so we are taking on bigger schemes and have far
more money than we've ever had before so as those start to build up and ramp up
and we've just taken some of the housing, for example, through the CA recently.
So as we start moving to the delivery of those programmes,
then we will start to bring reporting through various boards
so you can see actually what those are delivering
and then also what the outcomes and outputs are.
But as Sarah said, sometimes we are moving towards from outputs to outcomes.
Outcomes will often be quite a long time after potentially the closure of the project
because of the nature of it versus an output that is more immediate and is more likely
to be able to assess at closure point.
Thank you, Kaye.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:29:36
If I reflect on everything that we've just heard there, I think the common thread through
this is risk.
So it's risk to programme delivery, risks to not achieving value for money, et cetera,
et cetera.
So I think there's a question in here somewhere about what this committee wants to see to
enable them to get the right visibility of any risks that we're facing in this respect.
And I'm not sure with regards to programme delivery, which obviously is the key components of your
activity that we're actually getting cited on this adequately.
You'd expect to see some, if there is a problem, going to be a challenge with value for money.
Rather than waiting until we get the results and looking retrospectively and going, yes,
so it's a problem, you'd like to think that the framework would flag that before we even
get to that and if it's a serious risk this committee would be able to pick up the same
scheme delivery.
Maybe then in terms of that point that you've just made, that session that we've got in
November where we actually look at, you know, kind of correlate between the terms of reference
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 0:30:42
and what information the committee is, we could build that into that assessment and
and make sure we get to that.
I hear from Sarah and then I think I'll take the floor.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:30:49
Yeah, I think there's a difference between monitoring
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:30:51
and reporting and management of schemes to evaluation.
I think there's two slightly different things.
So one is what are we doing as we move along the process
of a programme or a project moving forward?
I think that is the monitoring and that is live, isn't it?
That is telling you at any given point where kind of we are
with that particular scheme.
And if there are any issues we would put in mitigating actions
as you say around managing risk.
I think evaluation is done after the event to measure.
So I think it's just making sure that we hold those two
things in a separate space.
But I will bring some more information back.
I'll talk to colleagues around the evaluation side
so that we can give you an update around how
that works in practise.
I think that would be helpful.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:31:33
And that would be good, because the evaluation piece
will sit with internal and external audit.
It won't sit in terms of the outcomes.
So you'd expect to get some assurance
through those mechanisms, wouldn't we, on that side
of things? To a degree, but we do rely on the evaluation team to do that. They are
absolute experts in their field, so we place a lot of reliance on the work that
they do to give us the assurance that we are getting the outcomes that we
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:32:03
anticipated. We do all of our programme and project assurance, we're building all of
those standard things that you would expect us to cheque, but it comes so long
after the event sometimes that actually our job is more about the risks in train
at a given point in time while the project is live.
The evaluation stuff I think really does speak to the value for money that we would really
be looking for.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:32:24
So if we revisit this in November, what we want to see on this.
Councillor Cummings.
Just a couple of quick questions.
West Shorkshire Mass Transmit Committee on page 46.
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:32:34
What do you actually mean by political oversight?
I thought West, I thought this was like an apolitical organisation.
So why would you have a decision making committee having political oversight?
What do you actually mean by that?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:32:53
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:32:55
Cllr Cllr Simon Brophy Kirklees Council - 0:33:21
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:33:31
So in terms of that committee where it means political oversight, it effectively means
a committee that has got members on it, so effectively elected members.
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 0:33:39
So we will always have within our governance structure,
as you can kind of see, we will have working committees,
for example, officer committees that will be managing
programme boards, et cetera.
The West Yorkshire Spatial Development
is the one that takes place in public
and has elected members and gives the political oversight
and there is membership from all of our councils.
What you mean is political oversight
is basically just because there's political members.
There's not actually saying we don't like this because.
No, no, no, that's not what it's designed for.
The way that the combined author, I really do apologise for that, I was on the wrong
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:34:12
page.
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:34:16
The reason we are described as that is because we are a combined authority.
Our legal orders make it clear that we are obligated to have representation not only
across the region but also on political balance so that the decisions are taken correctly
and transparently and the document that you're referring to that reflects that makeup so
that you're getting the voices from those particular constituent areas bringing in that
expertise so we're shaping decisions not through a single lens but through a wider lens for
the whole region and that's what it's meant by that.
I'm sorry you threw me when you said apolitical, that's not what it's designed to do, it's
designed to be a regional and transparent approach so I thank Kate for that as well.
7 .6, it seems a very large increase before it's referred back.
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:35:11
Who came up with 25 % increase on top of the already provisional tolerance?
So you're talking your original plus your tolerance plus 25 % before it goes back to
the board.
Who came up with that 25 % figure?
It seems a rather large amount before you go back to...
Especially if you've already got your tolerance.
So tolerance is supposed to be...
Once we hit the tolerance, we go back.
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:35:48
Can I just come in as well?
And that is sort of a standardised matrix model that we use as a threshold across a
number of projects that sort of when they've got government funding as well.
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:36:25
So it's not unusual to have it at that level because if it's any lower, then you're constantly
having to revisit it.
And if it's too high, then that's not proportionate either.
Okay.
And the last one I think is covered in the February and November.
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:36:38
Assessing value for money on page 81 mentions unmonetizable benefits.
I'm really interested in this calculation you've got going on.
I believe you will be doing that in November explaining you have your money for returns
and then you have your economical.
So is that part of what that section is about?
Yes, that is how we would have to try and monetise all of the benefits.
And you will explain how you do that in this training session?
It just seems very everyone is saying we do 1 .5 here, 0 .5 here, but how do you get these
figures?
I would like to know that.
So that will be in the training in November.
There is a training session someone mentioned.
I'm not aware of that.
Whatever we need to do, as I said, the team are really happy to come and.
I would like to submit bottom line figures of what that means, how you work that calculation out.
Thank you.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:37:40
Thank you. Can I just come back to that point that Councillor Cummings raised on tolerances.
I think this committee should know who sets the tolerances, where exactly, you know, who
agrees them, how does that process work, because if the tolerances aren't right, it's not consistently
applied, if there's no ownership of them, then, you know, it's a risk, isn't it?
So I think we should be really clear on the ownership of tolerance levels.
And I don't know how we achieve that visibility.
Just because someone says this is the standard, we have to follow the standard, we don't understand.
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:38:25
We need to understand what the impact is.
That's what I'm saying.
Just because someone does it doesn't mean we have to follow, we need to understand it.
I'd like to be back before we offer some response to your comment.
Can you come down here then?
You can come up here and you can report any more metall DWG, THEN, what other considerations
can you come up with if you want to.
classrooms, having the opportunity of having a reading Cathy to get up when you'reASH
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:39:02
to do that, which can SIMK use a map and bring you back away from the students' seat next
So I don't understand you've got a project, you give a tolerance to say this is acceptable.
Once it's gone over that tolerance, shouldn't you bring it back rather than wait until it
goes over 25 % on top of that.
That's what I'm saying.
What's the point of having a tolerance in the first place?
Why not just say 35 % of the original value?
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:39:54
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:39:59
I think Kate will come in on this in a minute.
But I think for this committee, we're concerned with governance, aren't we?
And tolerance is part of governance.
So it's more how that, to me it's more how we arrived at that.
And is it applied?
No.
So we're not setting that out there on the show.
This is kind of the approach.
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:40:32
Yeah, more the principles, I suppose, isn't it?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:40:39
So that's fine.
Kate, did you want to say something?
It's just in terms of the tolerance of the 25%.
So as we said, there is the 10 % which has a specific trigger.
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 0:40:50
The 25 is, so we have a £40 million limit on schemes that go to investment board, anything
above that where there is a combined authority form being of over £40 million goes to the
CA.
What the tolerance is saying is if that tolerance is between that 10 and 25%, it stays within
the investment board remit.
At the point where it is breaching the 25, it is going in, we then deem that actually
it should go to the CA for oversight because the impact at that point would probably have
consequences across wider programmes and it's that tolerance level at what point there could
be an implication that is significant to push that through.
But I think we can certainly take that through in terms of a wider discussion.
What I would say as well is as statutory officers, if we feel that something is significant enough,
even if it's not meeting the 25 % threshold, but we feel that actually the board, the top board,
the CA board should be cited, we can refer outside of the framework if we feel that we need to.
Thank you.
Sarah, we're all doing it today.
Thank you.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:42:09
Any further questions on that paper?
Councillor Greenwood.
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 0:42:17
What strikes me a little bit about it is it's very dependent on fluid almost
real -time information between the different lines and also in the tiers
within the lines.
And I just, it strikes me that that is not always the case,
particularly in what you're calling sort of the first line
of defence.
Managers and heads of service don't always,
they're not always made aware of issues within certain parts
of service.
And it strikes me that what you would be depending on here is
whistleblowing to basically inform heads of service and whatever that something was going
wrong somewhere. So I'm a little bit surprised as to why whistleblowing isn't made a bit
of a prop of it or a bit of like a side prop to this particular model. I just think it's
that assumption of fluid information that all your tiers within your first line are
always going to know when something is going wrong is maybe a little bit too much of an
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:43:42
assumption. So I'll start. So with your first line of defence, it's the responsibility of
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:43:47
management and officers to ensure that they are across the detail. Whistle blowing is
a completely different aspect of organisational activity. If we're relying on whistle blowing
something has gone completely wrong in terms of that first line. So it's not, I think the
point you're all trying to make Councillor Greenwood is it's reactive. That first line
is reactive, it's reliant on people telling you. But that's the only way that it, the
management structures, the reporting lines, the reports that we send to all of these various
boards internally, that's what they're designed to do as a first line defence. Then you move
a second and then you move to third. So they objectively do that. That is an established
mechanism. I don't understand how whittle blowing can sit within that at all.
I guess what I'm saying is what happens when they don't tell you? What happens when there's
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 0:44:43
a project on the ground that is going wrong and nobody on the ground is telling their
manager, their head of service that that is going wrong? That's kind of what I'm talking
about. So that's a different set of circumstances
and that sometimes arises and at those points that's where the risk strategy comes in, is
that you should be able to identify different layers of that project because it wouldn't
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:45:08
just, when you're doing a complex project, say for instance you're doing, I'm not going
to use Tran, what could I use, housing development, you would be able to tell, you wouldn't be
that first line. There would be multiple teams connecting that, so you would be able to,
through your project boards, through your various one -to -ones, be able to collect it.
There are times, I do accept this, that there are times when that's missed, and that's when
the risk framework comes into play and then the corporate leadership are there as well,
and external audit have a role to play. So you can never insulate it completely, but
That is why those three lines are there.
I don't know if colleagues want to add to that.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:46:00
What I would say is the owner of the policy is that it is there, we have done a big awareness
raising.
I think if somebody genuinely felt something wasn't being raised they know there is a mechanism
there.
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:46:12
It is a fail safe mechanism.
That is all it should be.
It shouldn't really be something people should use to escalate risks because there is a risk
process for doing that.
But they do know about the Whistleblowing Policy.
We do get referrals, we do cheque them all.
So I don't think there isn't a fail safe, I just don't think it's used in quite that
way.
We certainly don't see a lot of that coming where we would expect it to go through the
risk process.
It genuinely does tend to do that.
And Niki's point, you know, you can't legislate for everything, but we do have those processes
there if somebody genuinely felt something wasn't going right, they can raise a concern
with us.
And can I just sort of follow up on that?
They can come to the risk team directly and flag it through there objectively, and that
does happen.
They'll review the risk registers and say maybe this needs to be adjusted because we're
concerned about this.
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:47:04
And then that's scaled up through our various boards internally.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:47:15
Does that answer your query, Councillor? I do wonder if we are slightly talking at
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 0:47:20
cross purposes but it's not a matter for this committee at the moment.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:47:27
Thank you. Any other comments or queries? The gender
item was asking for any recommended amendments. I mean we had a good discussion about the
and how it's used and again I think it's something you can come back to in relation to how we
gain assurance that some of these mechanisms are actually working.
But in terms of the documents, is anyone suggesting any recommended changes to it or are you comfortable
that it is as it is?
We need to vote on this?
Yes, just so there's a record.
OK.
Can we have a mover?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:48:09
So can we have a move of the recommendations to note the review and refresh and to review
and recommend any amendments related to government risk or audit.
Councillor Greenwood, before we do that, do you propose?
Thank you, Councillor Jenkins.
All those in favour?
Lovely.
Thank you.

7 Risk Management

So moving on to agenda item 7, and that's risk management, and it's very much an overview
of the development of risk management and details changes to the risk management strategy
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:48:47
and the progress made in strengthening risk management arrangements, and this paper is
to note.
So, Nicky, did you want to introduce this?
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:48:56
So we will be bringing the risk registers to the next meeting, but what we wanted to
do first, the risk manager following feedback at the first meeting that we've all had in
July, he was very keen, as am I, to just sort of set out the journey that we've been in
relation to risk and where we are at this moment in time. So it's clear to say that
the beginning risk in the organisation was quite fragmented and in 2025 a report was
taken to find where we can make improvement. The framework was approved, the strategy is
in place and from that we went on a journey. So what we're looking at at the moment is
that there's a lot of good practises in place with the organisation but there seems to be,
given the scale of our responsibilities, there's been a heightened degree of how risk plays
into that. So originally when we did the risk assessment in July it was, sorry in January
2025, it was operating at a level two. It was developing into a framework and organisational
understanding. What we've done as an organisation, instead of having fragmented risk registers
everywhere and approaches to risk, we've got standardised risk registers, we've got some
clearer methodologies, we've got improved reporting requirements both at local levels
within team meetings, project boards, corporate boards, performance boards and also SLB and
then routing it to yourselves so that there's proper scrutiny and questions around how risk
is being identified. There's greater leadership in this now as well and there's clear responsibilities
who the owner is and who the response is and where the actions have to fall out and there's
also a centralised risk register. So we feel that we're moving into a space now where there's
increased visibility on corporate and operational risks. We've assessed it at a defined stage
which is level three and what that means is that there is a consistent approach that's
now being applied and there's common risk language that's being used by the organisation.
it's more structured in its approach. But there are challenges and we've got to be honest
about this. There have been comments back through internal audit and also through officers
that they found the complexity of the risk registers quite difficult to use. So we've
taken that on board, we're simplifying it, we are trying to make this more engaging and
better to utilise on a day -to -day basis by those officers who need to understand risk
and assess it and make sure that they're looking at the controls that we've got in place, what
the residual risk is and then looking at the actions as well that arise from that. So we're
working with the organisation and we're making changes as we're going along. We're also trying
to simplify it and make training with officers short and snappy so that we can get those
messages through and it becomes the language of the organisation so it's joint. We have
got a small risk team that's highlighted in your papers but as the organisation
grows we're hoping that that will grow with it and what I'd like to say is the
relationship between internal audit and risk and also the second line of
defence and also the first line of defence is flowing through I'd say
correctly the mechanisms it's systematic at the moment but we're on a journey of
improvement where we're embedding and the report sets that out with the RMS
So I'm happy to take any questions or take any questions away if you'd like to do a session
on this.
You're more than welcome.
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks, Nicky.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:52:46
Before we get on to the report itself, I just wanted to understand who had taken the decision
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 0:52:52
that we were, this committee was not going to review risks this time around on what basis
and whether or not that had been agreed in advance with the Chair, and if not, why not?
Absolutely.
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:53:07
So we sought consent from the lead officer, which is the chief executive and also the
section 73 officers, given that we wanted to present this report first and then given
the very quick time scale that we've got with November coming up, that we could present
you with the new report.
The new reports have been reformatted and that's why we thought it was appropriate to
do it in that sequence.
So there isn't any material detriment to you for weeks but we made that decision that
was the most logical step.
In addition the risk manager was available for today's session and we thought it would
be better for him to be available for the next session.
Okay, so my question was then around whether that was agreed in advance with the chair
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 0:53:46
and whether that's an appropriate process to go through for the agenda.
No, it was a decision that we were doing in planning but lead officers sometimes make
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:53:59
those decisions and we updated the chair as soon as we were able to.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:54:07
I do think Dave's got a point now and I think we maybe should make the decision collectively
if this arises again.
Absolutely, I'll take that on board and make sure that members of the society do as well
in advance.
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 0:54:20
I just think that the chair ought to be in control of the agenda of this committee at
all times.
Thank you. We'll make sure that that's put into place immediately. Thank you. Did you
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:54:29
have any other comments, David? Was that it?
Well, yeah, I would have asked a question of the chief executive had he been here, so
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 0:54:37
I'm not sure who the right person to ask this answer is. Just really wanted to understand
what the impact of all this effort on the risk management system has been in terms of
changes in decision making, improved decision making or improved management of risks at
the most senior level in general to understand what's changed as a result of those activities
and effort and see the impact of that. So I don't know if somebody in the executive
wants to answer that.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:55:05
So I think as Nicky's put it out, we put this in probably actually around 12 months ago
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 0:55:12
now when this came in, it wasn't long after I started and what we kind of embedded I think
from a senior level is that we have a lot more visibility from a risk perspective now.
We put a corporate board in as well around 12 months ago which is one of our internal
governance boards, it's alongside our investment and performance where risk now comes through
and we have that oversight. Between that and embedding it down within the organisation,
I think what we have got is a much stronger conversation happening at all levels and a
much more heightened awareness of risk.
So through our management team meetings that we'll be having discussions with our kind
of heads of service and ensuring that we've got that through that tearing up into there.
So yeah, I think – and Sarah can – you know, Sarah has been here longer than me,
but I think the impact that it's having is starting to move the dial in terms of the
the conversations that we're having, actually the challenge that we are able and are putting
back as a senior team as well around what we are seeing on the risk register and whether
we are content and whether we feel it triangulates with other information, for example. We might
have seen other boards we might have been in, performance information in there. And
so I think it is having a difference, it is having an impact, it is becoming more part
of our daily lexicon as we kind of work through.
Thank you, I think Nicky wants to come in as well.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:56:41
Yeah, if that's okay David. I think in terms of impact, that's the overall impact, it's
been hugely positive I think. The literacy of risk management activity has not been something
that you just do because you have to, it's something that they're thinking through the
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:56:56
life cycle of the risk. In addition to that, what we do at Corporate Board is we look at
individual directorates. So we'll do, the risk manager and his team will go into individual
directorates and have a look at those risks and do a full report on where the movement
has been, whether the controls in place are adequate and what further considerations need
to be. What that invokes is an open discussion. Instead of looking at it in a blank piece
of paper or a spreadsheet, it allows us to sort of talk around the issues in a wider
scale and troubleshoot effectively and look at possible options in terms of actions. But
us as a management team taking it's about corporate grip on risk and enabling that.
And these processes are all aligning. And I think we're on a journey with risk. Every
organisation is. You never have a full safe system of risk. But we're here to sort of
say we're ready to improve. And I think it's on the right journey.
Thank you.
Just a quick one.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:58:00
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 0:58:03
The overall report phase 1 and phase 2 have actually got target dates that have been completed
past.
But the report under that is still going on about key deliverables, not whether you have
met them or to me a report if you have got something that is past date should have an
outcome against the key rather than just specify the key deliveries.
Just as a general comment.
Whereas fees 3 and 4 are in progression.
so I can understand why you've got key deliverables. It just seems one and two passed. Is it being
completed? Was there any issues? It just seems there was like one little section of outcomes
missing in this report. So what we're going to do for the next report
that you've got, the manager's going to do a deep dive. So he's going to give you an
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:58:43
example so he can show you what the outcomes are. And I do accept that. What you'd want
to see against all of those stages is what the outcomes were, what the conclusions were,
what follow -ups were. Yeah, absolutely. You're completely right. So we'll take that away
for you, Councillor.
I think David wanted to come back with something.
David, do you have another query?
I'm going to say a very useful description.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:59:03
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 0:59:04
I think what will be helpful for committee, not necessarily now, but maybe in the future,
is to come back with an example of how a decision has changed from what it would have been otherwise,
how a risk has been better mitigated or avoided as a result of this,
to give a tangible example of that impact.
I completely agree with you, because that's the only way that this register comes to life,
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 0:59:23
so you can use an example of where something has been identified, what the controls were
with the inherent risk and then what actions we took with the residuals. So that is in
place, I can assure you that will be coming back.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 0:59:38
Can I just ask a follow up from that, lessons learned, where things go wrong, how do you
make sure that you learn from that in terms of how the risk management system is working?
So what we're doing is we're trying to collate common themes that are happening across certain
projects and I think what that does is it provides you with not only a thematic approach
on risk which can be presented back and this is part of the deep dive work so that we can
sort of make sure that when we're going into the next circle sometimes when that impact
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 1:00:13
is arisen it's too late to mitigate so we need to make sure that that's part of our
learning so that we're not doing that in future projects and that becomes part of the actions
that we adopt, not at the end but as part of the established controls.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:00:29
So I was thinking more about the risk process, so everything that we've got in place here
in terms of how the system works, do you reflect on the system failure as well if a risk manifests?
Yeah we do, and I think that's important because I think there's been a lot of commentary about
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 1:00:55
the risk usability and we're really I'm very mindful of that and we want to make it better
and improve it so we look at the risk of what failures are within our systems so we can
improve it next time as well.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:01:08
Okay I just say you know kind of on that obviously this is quite a new system so we're still
testing some of this so perhaps some of the things that people might be thinking in their
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 1:01:14
mind for example we took a report on White Rose for example that went to the
CA around lessons learned that wasn't under this risk system at this point in
time so I think there's a little bit of that's what we would do if and when
those happen at the moment but we we haven't been operating within this
framework for for a particularly long period.
Sarah? Yeah it was just to kind of come back and a short commentary I've not
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:01:39
been here that long I've only been here nearly three years but there's
definitely been a maturing of the approach.
I think the standardisation has helped enormously.
It means everybody is talking the same language.
I think we're also integrating the thinking and the discussion
in the other boards, so I chair the performance board.
So part of the discussion on performance
is understanding the risk, and we've
done some alignment with risk in terms
of reporting on performance.
So I think this is something that is becoming much more
embedded across everything that we do,
and it allows us to take, I think as colleagues have said,
a bit more of that holistic picture.
So it's not just about looking at risk registers,
actually thinking around how are these things moving in
and working on a day -to -day basis
and how are we kind of thinking about that
in part of every discussion that we have.
So I think just to kind of support really.
I think there's always more that we can do
in this space, isn't it?
And I think Nicky's point around trying to make it
more user friendly I think is one of the things
that I think has been fed back as part of that,
that learning about the processes that actually
there's a danger sometimes if you've got a process
that people become obsessed with the process and fill in the boxes and we don't have the
right conversations and I think from my perspective we definitely start to have those conversations
and I guess it's empowering people to have those conversations at the right level and
that's happening at lots of different levels now which I don't think was happening previously
when I first started with the organisation.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:03:06
Thank you. So I think it would be useful as Dave suggested that when it's matured a bit
we hear from some of the other officers to bring it to life for us so if we can make
a note and maybe come back to that in the meetings.
I think that what would be good is a workshop so that we could take you through the whole
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 1:03:22
life cycle, what was learnt, what was of the state, what we've put in place as a consequence.
Yes, thank you, that would be useful.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:03:29
Any further comments on that?
No?
Okay, so if we can just go to the vote then. So to recommend the Governance and Audit Committee
notes the contents of the report, progress made against the strategy development, and
notes the current challenges and risks affecting delivery, and then the continuing work to
embed consistent risk management processes across the combined authority. So, go ahead
and a seconder. Thank you, Councillor Jenkins and all those in favour. Thank you.

8 Data Officer Protection Report

Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:04:14
Agenda item 8 is the data officer protection report. Again, this is the note. It contains
a dashboard which officers have revised to take into account comments from G &A meetings
before and I think Nicky again this is you presenting this. It's actually the statutory
officer who is at the end of the table but thank you.
Thank you chair, thank you Nicky. So I'll just touch on the notable points in the report,
Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:04:40
I'll take the report as read otherwise. So members might notice a slight change in the
reporting style that was intentional, it's to provide the committee with more insights
into the core compliance measures that we previously reported on.
So the report begins with information requests, it covers a few different information requests
as subject access requests and other data subject rights requests.
The key thing to note about this report is that the data presented in the report and
the appendices covers a quarterly period only and that's intentional so that there's no
risk of overlap between what's presented to you at this report and that the next quarter
Committee. Freedom of information requests continue to be the most resource intensive
area of information governance. That said, compliance is relatively strong. It's at an
average of 95 percent and that is despite the complexity and volume of FOI's increasing.
What I mean by complexity in the report as well is that we're noticing patterns of lengthy
and layered requests that are coming in, which requires a lot more operational effort in
coordinating information from multiple service areas.
The predominant reason for missed FOI deadlines is due to information coming back from service
areas quite late. We've since worked with a couple of service areas and delivered targeted
training to them and produced FOI guidance as well.
And that has resulted, we are seeing better engagement and better compliance rates.
Appendix 2 is in reference to the transparency obligations and again, intend to provide more
insights into the data than previously reported.
This dashboard monitors compliance against the combined authorities obligations to proactively
published information, so that's under the FOI model publication scheme in the local
government transparency code.
We're sitting at an overall compliance rate of 63 per cent.
Members might have noted that this is a reduction compared to previous report.
I'd ask members to note the reason for this is that the team has refreshed its review
cycle, so it's overdue it's a review cycle, which means what has previously been reported
as compliant may have fallen into non -compliant because of its outside its review cycle.
So the IG team continue to work with service areas to audit against this and push for more
publication.
One of the key areas for improvement under transparency is the publication of policies.
In many cases, there are longstanding policies that remain quite substantially unchanged
because they are underpinned by legislation that rarely changes itself.
And it's more than likely that it requires minor administrative changes rather than any
great risk to operationally or any legal risk.
The ICO accountability framework.
Now this has previously been reported as a framework we use or a tool we use to measure
our data protection compliance.
Likewise with the transparency dashboard, this has needed a refresh of its audit cycle.
Since we have only just started the refresh of the audit cycle, the evidence gathering
is still underway, so there is no concrete compliance figure I can provide at this moment
in time that is supported by evidence.
But we are looking by the end of this quarter to make significant progress.
Likewise with the transparencies, well a lot of the governance controls that are in the
ICO accountability framework are well established controls which I would expect for an organisation
that's well established like this to be compliant and remain unchanged. At first glance the
picture is looking at 75 % compliance with the ICO's requirements or the criteria for
meeting the ICO's expectations.
There were zero information security incidents
that met the threshold for reporting to the ICO.
We do monitor that on a case -by -case basis as well.
And then we continue to wait for more information
from the ICO on the next steps for complaints.
So, so far we've been notified of three complaints.
Two of those complaints were the same
as what was reported at the previous committee in July.
and I know that all of them relate to exemptions under the FOI Act.
Mandatory staff training on UK GDPR needs a bit more of a push.
It needs to drive that compliance rate up, but we do make it conditional that access
to systems is conditional on completing that GDPR training.
That's the summary of the main points.
I'll take any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:09:48
Any questions on that from anybody?
Councillor Jenkins?
Cllr David Jenkins CA Member - 1:09:56
Yes, on 4 .1, it mentions the more use of AI -assisted drafting tools.
So I just wondered how you'd cope with, or we should put in place,
a risk assessment for vexatious generated AI requests for freedom of information.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:10:20
Cllr David Jenkins CA Member - 1:10:22
Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:10:25
The ICO does recognise that AI has generated a drive or an uptake in people submitting
a lot more FOI requests.
The ICO's recommendation is that we look at exemptions, certain exemptions such as the
an FOI request is vexatious.
So we do rely on those time cost limit exemptions first
and provide us advice and assistance to help the requester
summarise the requests.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:11:04
That's answer your question, Councillor Jenkins.
Okay, thank you, Councillor Green.
Yes, mine follows on from Councillor Jenkins.
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 1:11:12
What are the time cost limits for man hours
Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:11:25
I think the cost limit is 25 pounds per hour.
It's a formula that is set by the SEO.
And again, off the top of my head, I think it's 16 or 18 hours.
But I can verify that.
But it is a set formula, yes.
Are you finding that you are breaching that with any freedom of information request at
all? Sorry, Councillor, breaching the statutory
deadlines or the time cost limits, are you going over it? Because I understand it doesn't
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 1:12:04
include reduction and review, does it, that time cost?
Saeema Hawaldar, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:12:11
It's just for the searching and collating of the information.
Again, with the time cost limit there's a duty for us to provide advice and assistance
to the requesters to bring it underneath the time cost limit.
And so in terms of sort of breaching it's not necessarily breaching we do provide the
advice and assistance to bring it underneath under the cost limit.
At that point in time you can stop the clock and restart it so that the request can then
we can achieve the objective of the request.
We do try and facilitate these requests.
We understand our transparency duty so we want to comply and deliver everything.
So what's IAME's team?
They're such a great team.
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 1:13:00
They will look at the request and when it's obvious that it's going to meet the threshold
go over it. We will go back and try and sort of narrow the question so that the requester
is getting the information that they want and they are under the threshold so everyone
gets the information that they are after.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:13:23
Thank you. Any other questions on that paper? No? Thank you for your input to that. So the
recommendation is that the committee notes the report. Do I have a proposer? Yes, thank
Thank you.
Look at the two usual suspects.
Thank you, Councillor Jenkins.
And all those in favour?
Yes, lovely.
Thank you, Chair.

9 Q1 Treasury Management Update

Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:13:51
So this is the first time you've had your Treasury Management report.
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 1:13:59
So previously under the previous governance system, it was the finance reporter at Finance Resources and Corporate Committee
That had the responsibility for reviewing Treasury management
In there, so now that that committee doesn't
Exist we have brought this to you what we set out in
Section three is in the background section is for you to see kind of what you should expect to see what my
responsibilities are as a section 17 the responsibility for Treasury management
for the organisation and then what you would expect to see as a committee it is
a little bit strange this year in that so we have a Treasury management strategy
that is set towards the end of the preceding kind of financial year so
around March time we will take the Treasury management strategy that will
be approved by the CA and that will set out the guardrails and the potential
indicators that then I have to execute Treasury management for the organisation over the course
of the 12 months. Because of the timing of that, that report went to FRCC last year,
well this year, in terms of that and then through to CA in March. Going forward it will
come to GAC around January time and then will then come forward to the CA for approval again
within March so you will provide review, endorsement and comment on that and then it will go forward
to CA because that is a non -delegated duty of the Combined Authority Board.
What you will then receive on each quarter is a report showing you what our performance,
so it is a backwards looking report telling you what our performance has been over that
period of time and that is this report that you have here.
What I can confirm to you is we are within all of our Treasury and Prudential indicators
So we are still online with those that we have not breached any in there and we have
no compliance issues.
I think it's fair to say that the authorities' investment strategy to date has been very
much one of investing.
So we have cash and we invest and we make investment income.
We have no long -term – we have some historic, around 75 million of historic borrowing that
we inherited when the PTE was kind of collapsed into the CA many years ago.
We haven't yet undertaken any borrowing as a CA to support schemes that are being discussed
as we are looking at some newer schemes that are in there.
So that may change in the future and we will need to reflect that in future treasury management
strategies.
What I will just draw from attention is we did do some short -term borrowing over the
course of around a few days in this quarter.
We have been doing some significant property transactions in relation to bus franchising,
particularly around acquisition of depots to support the programme.
The cash requirement for that actually came forward by quite a few months from what we had
expected and then that just some of our money was out on long -term investments so we just have to do
a small amount of very short -term borrowing while some of the shorter term investments matured
within that. So I think that was the first time we'd actually borrowed in a decade in
that respect. So for those. You will notice as well there is West Yorkshire Police in
there so under the kind of police responsibility as the PCC we also have responsibility for
the Treasurer's management of West Yorkshire Police as well so I hold their cash and their
Treasury and their investment for that. So you will see within the report it will
show WICA which is a single entity as I always say the things that happen in
this building and then West Yorkshire Police as well for that. Happy to take any
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:17:55
questions chair. Thanks Kate. Any questions on the Treasury Management
Strategy?
I'll just have one about the old transport authority borrowing. Presumably that's what
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:18:11
the final line in table 3 .7 is, the actual borrowing to repay that debt.
Yeah and we've got full cover in terms of being able to repay that debt down as well.
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 1:18:26
Any other questions? Councillor Greenwood.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:18:27
Yes, I was just wondering how these borrowers come to WICA. What's the process by which
they come to – I mean, are they brokered? Are they brokered deals?
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 1:18:37
So our treasury management is actually – so we have an SLA who leads City Council who
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 1:18:46
perform the treasury management activity for the combined authority and then Wakefield
Council do the treasury management activity for West Yorkshire Police at the moment.
So leads do that as they manage their own.
So we will set ultimately as part of the treasury management strategy we will set the safeguards
that come and then leads will effectively make it known that we are available if people
will want and people can apply in through the system of local authority borrowing and
they will assess them against our prudential indicators that they are an appropriate borrower
in the term and manage that. So it kind of comes through that system. But ultimately
yeah, you kind of make it known that you are available, you have cash available to be a
lender within that local authority system. Yes, because I was just a little bit intrigued
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 1:19:44
as to why CRIS
lent money to the national bank of Kuwait and the Australian New Zealand banking group.
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 1:19:51
I absolutely, interestingly I said the one thing that would be picked up was the Kuwait
tonight when we were pre -thinking there. So the national bank of Kuwait is registered
in this country, it actually has, it's full listed within the UK in there. So ultimately
if they come and they ask and they are deemed within our bits and it's assessed then the
then Leeds will and can do that. So yes, but they are, the Kuwait Bank is actually a PLC
listed on the UK stock market. Thank you. Any other queries? No? Okay. I'm
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:20:33
aware that treasury management can, well it's this fairly technical subject and we have
got new committee members and I think we tried to give you an induction at the start, however,
if anyone feels that they need more instruction on this, or do you? There's a question. Does
anyone feel they need more instruction on this at this stage or not? No? Okay, that's
good. Okay, we can revisit this anyway. The officers are always happy to provide support
on any training matters that we might think we have. So, yeah. Lovely. So, the recommendation
The governance and audit committee note the quarter 1 treasury management update.
Can I have a proposal, please?
Councillor Greenwood and Councillor Jenkins seconds.
Thank you. All those in favour?
Thank you very much.
Good. So agenda item 10.

10 Quarterly Internal Audit Progress Update

That's the quarterly internal audit progress update to provide the committee with an update on the progress of the work undertaken since the last meeting.
and the detailed reports that sit behind this as usual have been put in the repository and
are accessible. Can I just cheque that all officers are able to access that repository?
Yes, yeah, good, lovely, thank you. So Bron, did you want to speak to this?
I won't say a great deal because the report is quite comprehensive and I'm sure you'd
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:21:55
prefer the opportunity to challenge and ask questions. But just to note, we are behind
target. We should have been at 30 % delivery by the end of September. Slight improvement,
we're at 22%, but not improvement enough. A couple of reasons for that, we have got
some absences that were entirely unplanned and unexpected and we are still in the process
of doing some recruitment. So we have one member of the team retiring and we're replacing
that role. That was a senior auditor, so it's quite a big loss for us, a very experienced,
well established auditor.
We've also been spending a lot of time digitising and
automating some of our processes with the ultimate
aim of a real gain on this, particularly in action
follow -up and also in terms of our resource recording to
really understand in forensic detail where our
team are spending their time, whether we've got
learning opportunities that we need to address because
of that, whether we've got issues around productivity
and efficiency and I mean it blows my mind the information that I get out of that resource
recording is absolutely incredible. Again, at some opportunity happy to show the committee
what we have and how we use it. I think you will be quite as mind blown as I usually am
when we do the reports every month. So it is an incredible tool for helping to manage
what the team is actually doing and what the focus is on so we can risk assess all the
time, make sure we are reconsidering the plan, moving things around if we need to. We have
got a major piece of work underway at the moment on a bus franchising readiness cheque,
so all of the team are currently working on that, alongside doing other pieces of work
that usually have a case holding of reviews. So there is a lot of activity underway and
I am confident we will do better come year end. We probably will not hit the 90 % target,
which was a stretch target this year.
But we're certainly hoping to get close to that.
Other than that, very happy to take any questions
on any aspect of the report.
Thanks, Bron.
Questions, Dave?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:24:02
I just wanted to pick up on audit 47,
the one that was done by STS.
In particular, the recommendation
that wasn't accepted by management.
Looking in the SharePoint repository,
looking at the details of that,
they seem to be fairly straightforward cyber security control recommendations that management
just seemed to have decided it's not going to implement and it's going to accept the
risk. I wonder what happens to that now. It doesn't seem to be a particularly satisfactory
outcome.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:24:37
We do have a process where management don't agree recommendations, which they are entitled
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:24:48
to do. We do however assess whether we agree with their disagreement and we report that
in full in the final report that we issue which again you will be able to see in the
repository. It does get escalated and it is something that I think this committee absolutely
has the right to challenge and to ask management to come and explain whether that refusal to
accept that recommendation is reasonable. So I would propose that we ask the relevant
to come and talk to the committee in November. So at least it still has currency if it comes
that quickly. In future though, I think it would be really helpful if we got any prior
information around where you would want management to come and speak in response to things, because
I think that is absolutely the right thing to do. But we need to tee it up so that directors
can be available to come and we're not dropping it on them right at the last minute with them
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:25:43
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 1:25:47
I think as a general principle any new order that comes through with an order action that
hasn't been accepted, I think we should turn that as an automatic need to have a conversation.
And plus, when we get to it later on in terms of the updates on the ongoing points, anything
that hasn't had a response and where there are areas where a lot of risks and a lot of
points in the same area haven't had a response, that could be an automatic call in as well
and potentially where there's a disagreement over whether things are closed or not, that
you would like us to intervene in.
I mean, those sort of things I think we can, on a regular systematic basis, ask people
to come in.
I take your point, though, that catching people at the right time and being prepared is helpful.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:26:30
I think, though, following up on that, Dave, I think, again, it's something we could come
back to in November, but calling criteria, because that would overcome that problem,
because we're only cited on the papers five days in advance.
So if officers have a criteria to work to,
then you'll know automatically at what point
to ask people to attend the committee, won't you?
So I think we could usefully do that.
I have a slightly wider concern about this,
and it's a number of all the blockers that are listed.
And some of the themes in there we've seen recurring,
not just within this report,
but within other reports over the years.
and I'm just really starting to get quite anxious
and that's indicating an absence or maybe not an absence,
maybe that's too harsh, but there's certainly something
there around what is the senior management team doing
to try and resolve some of these matters.
We shouldn't be seeing that many blockers.
If there is something there, you'd expect management
to try and identify the root cause, get to the bottom of it
and resolve it one way or the other and I'm just not seeing that in newspapers.
I was hoping to ask Ben but obviously he's not here today.
I think that is a very fair question and it is something that should be directed to management for obvious reasons.
The audit reports are looking back though, so that doesn't mean that is the current position and that's why it's important to get a management response.
I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a management response to be provided ahead
of the committee meeting because we do put our papers in quite well in advance of them
being published so I think there could be a response from management that accompanies
the report.
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:28:13
I'm happy to take that forward and have the conversations with the statutory officers
to see how we can make that happen.
And I think it's also important to note that these issues that come out of audits are,
one as I said, a reflection on that point in time, but they are also a reflection on
the nature of where we're telling them to make improvements and why accepting recommendations
is so important, because if they don't do that these blockers don't go away. So I think
that process of making sure that recommendations are actually accepted and delivered in a timely
fashion is a lot of what helps to address the blockers, if that makes sense.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:28:55
It does make sense, it sort of rolls over into the next gender item as well slightly
doesn't it, because it seems very easy for people to say we're not doing it because it's
not our problem, it's somebody else's problem, but that has to stop somewhere doesn't it,
Somebody has to take accountability to resolve these matters.
Councillor?
Did you want to comment?
Just clarifying.
So if someone if the audit does say you need to do A, B, C and the management says we are
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 1:29:20
not doing C, can it be standard practise?
If you reject an audit, you automatically have to come to the committee the next committee,
full stop.
There is no we will wait until we report it.
If the manager says we are not doing it, he knows that he will have to appear in the first
governance audit committee that's happening next, yeah,
and see what's why, yeah.
I would suggest that's a very good idea
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:29:45
and I'm seeing those around the table as well.
Yes, I could adopt that, thank you, yes.
Okay, any other queries on this, Councillor Greenwood?
Yes, so there's been a bit of slippage
and there's some resource issues.
Cllr Alex Greenwood CA Member - 1:30:06
Do you feel that you're going to be able to cover
enough work in enough areas to be able to give an annual opinion at the end of the year.
So that is always foremost in my mind, are we doing enough and that's why we do
keep reconsidering the plan to see what we might need to either defer. We don't
do any of that without bringing it back to committee first for approval and
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:30:30
agreement to make changes to the plan but that is a constant thought process
for me in terms of how I manage the risk of not being able to give an opinion. I
would absolutely assure both this committee and management that they would be alerted
if I thought there was any risk of me not being able to have sufficient work to give
an opinion. We've never been in that position before, we have issued limited opinions, but
we have never had a position where we've not done enough. I don't see that being any different
this year.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:31:04
Thank you. Anything else on that paper? No. So we have a clear action there, which is
to invite or to ask anyone turning down or refusing to implement an audit action to come
here to this committee. I think that's very clear, so we'll make sure that happens as
followed through, Bron. So the recommendation is the Governance and
committee note the quarterly internal update. Could I have a proposer, please?
Do you want me to propose to know as well as to address the matter of a calling criteria
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:31:39
to request offices to put together a calling criteria?
Yes, yes. And the calling criteria.
Can we not call it calling criteria? Because I've got the chair of scrutiny sat around
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 1:31:52
the table and he has the calling powers through his committee, so a request of attendance,
so that those officers that have, I wouldn't use the word refused, disagreed with the recommendations,
not to be implemented, that they attend in person to explain and provide further clarification.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:32:20
I think we said we would try and work on that, didn't we, so that there's certain thresholds
then people automatically are called to speak to the committee.
So I would suggest for the purpose of now, Councillor Greenwood, if you seem like you're
to make this as an amendment to the recommendation that you put that in and
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 1:32:42
then we look at the detail at a later date perhaps next month as to what that
criteria could look like.
So the proposal I'm making is just to note and also that offices implement...
Are you implementing...?
No, no, I'm not asking to go away and think about it. We will take your instruction as
a committee. We will absolutely take you. That is an instruction that you have given
us. What I think needs to be considered further is the criteria.
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 1:33:22
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 1:33:30
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:33:39
Thank you, Councillor Greenwood and a seconder. Thank you, Councillor Jenkins. All those in
favour? Lovely. Thank you very much. Okay. So agenda item 11, that's the quarterly

11 Quarterly Audit Recommendation Follow Up Report

audit recommendations follow -up report and again this is back to Bron. Thank you
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:34:02
Chair. So I feel we have already sort of started to explore some of this in the
conversation so far but just to note while the number of overall
recommendations has come down and I always caution people to see that
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:34:16
as a positive actually a lot more assurance work generates a lot more
recommendations the number of recommendations should never really be
the issue, it's the number of overdue recommendations that I think we should be more concerned about,
and that has gone up since the last committee meeting, so I definitely think there is some
work to be done.
What we did do at the request of the committee was we asked the auditors to give a much better,
fuller response in that RAB rated column around their views on what was being given back to
them by the business in terms of responses.
Was that adequate?
did it actually give sufficient evidence to address the risk and the recommendation as
stated, and hopefully you are getting the benefits of that kind of feedback directly
to you on the views of the auditors themselves.
We are struggling a bit with this at the moment and again, I would reflect that in the current
circumstances there is an awful lot going on in this organisation, this is not the main
priority for people currently, but again I would say the sooner we address recommendations
and build in those controls and compliance,
the firmer the foundations are that we're building on
to bring all of the new activities into the business.
So I would caution management to make sure
that they are expediting the delivery of recommendations
as quickly as they can.
I won't say anymore, I'll happily take questions.
Thank you Bron, and it does link back
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:35:43
to our early discussion, doesn't it?
Because if they're not expediting recommendations,
that is a risk to the business and that is really quite a big concern for me anyway.
Any comments or questions from anybody? Councillor CUMMING.
Just looking at 60, that's a good point. It was due in April.
You sent a reminder. You sent another reminder.
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 1:36:06
Just seems like there's no bite. There's no stick and carrot, please do it,
where's the stick, you know, what can, how can we help to sort of like make that happen
because that's number six to eight, it's just someone's ignoring you basically, you know.
Did you want to come back or Dave's got a question, you want to add to that first, yeah.
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 1:36:29
Just to add that I completely agree, I think the reporting and the response of the internal
just is much better, much clearer for us, but there is a sense here that there's a significant
minority that are just ignoring this.
So about 10 % of these items have had no response.
One of those is owned by the CEO, which is not a great look.
So I think, you know, back to our not calling, but whatever we're going to call it, requirement,
I would say, rather than the request to attend, one of the criteria should be where no response
has been given.
They can choose to give no response to internal audit, but they will have to come here and
give a response to us in person.
So that may help to boil the wheels a little bit more in terms of the responses.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:37:07
I would tend to agree because if people are just not going to respond or not respond to
requests, not to action requests, then it makes you wonder what the point of internal
audit is.
And you're stretched, we know the team's stretched, so to add value people should act, shouldn't
they respond?
And just to add to the debate around this, I did explain that we were digitising some
of our processes and automating some of our requests out for follow -ups. We are also,
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:37:37
having had a recent conversation with the chief executive about this, because he does
go back to directors when he sees the report that is coming to this committee and he asks
for them to do some quick activity.
We did an extension to the deadline before this last committee.
We got a number of responses back, but we also didn't get some that hadn't responded previously.
So we are looking to just further amend that reporting process
because I feel the balance of responsibility is landing back on my team
to keep chasing the business and it is turning into a bit of a cottage industry
where we are spending all of our time issuing reports saying these have not been updated.
I get challenged back from the business to say that their teams are telling them they
have closed the actions, they have provided the evidence. I spend then a lot of time chasing
my team to be sure that they are not delaying things or ignoring things that have come back.
It gets incredibly frustrating but also very resource draining and we have got an assurance
plan to deliver that we are behind on. So we are going to reflect on the system as it
currently stands and while we are going to continue to make sure the business has the
information so we are going to send out to the directors their list of outstanding actions.
We are going to give them access to the live system so that at any point in time they can
go and look at the system itself. It will be a read only so the changes will be made
by us. We're building forms in so they can very easily find their own recommendations
and give us those updates. But it will be the responsibility of the directors to chase
their people to fulfil the work that is being asked of them, rather than my team. So there
are changes. We are not sitting here sort of saying, well it's not quite working, what
can we do? We are really thinking about how we put the responsibility with the business
to make sure that they do what they need to do.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:39:38
So thank you, Bron. I mean, I think we appreciate the effort your team goes to to try and close
these down, but this is a recurrent theme, isn't it? And to me, it goes down to two things,
culture and consequence. There's something that is amiss if we're keeping seeing these
things and they're not being resolved, and I was really hoping Ben would be here today
to press him for an answer, because we can invite people back where things aren't being
action, that's fine, but I can't help feeling that we need to understand how this is being
driven from the very top to make sure these things are addressed. What I don't want to
do is for this to fall down the gaps if Ben is leaving, you know, with the change of senior
leader. So I'd be very keen to hear from somebody at the next meeting to try and bring us assurance
that it really is being driven from the very top of the organisation. Kate?
We'll certainly take that away obviously it will be the
Interim chief exec who
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 1:40:35
Been in for about eight days so might might be a little unfair on them at that point in time, but we will bring a
leadership team response back
Thank you yes council Jenkins, yeah, just on
Cllr David Jenkins CA Member - 1:40:53
5 .1 tackling the climate emergency implications it
There's a similar sort of request may be to look at the climate and environment plan,
and if it's not being actioned, it says here this will carry a delivery risk for the
organisation.
So I just wonder if we could examine that and see what support is available from other
authorities around climate emergency and like the climate commission in Leeds or the West
Yorkshire climate commission as well.
So that is quite a recently completed report so we haven't placed that action yet. I think
what we're trying to flag there is that the action has been made and we are emphasising
it needs to, they need to take the action in a timely way.
So we didn't want to wait for the first follow up to say this does need attention.
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:41:58
I don't, I'm not suggesting there is a problem yet and it may be that they are being able
to progress it and we will be able to report that to the next committee.
If I think there is an issue though, we will flag that up and we will.
I knew I wasn't going to get it right.
Requirements for management to update if we think there is a problem.
But I don't want to suggest there is.
I just want to suggest that it's something that just management needs to be absolutely
on top of.
Cllr David Jenkins CA Member - 1:42:28
I was just thinking that after this last summer, you know, it's quite a hot topic.
Is there anybody else got any more?
Dave.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:42:45
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 1:42:48
While we're talking through actions and following up on actions, it's good that we've now had
access to the PWC Readiness Report after six months of asking for it.
I notice in there it has a list of about 30 recommendations and actions required.
Some have already happened, some with different time frames.
A lot of them relate to obviously assurance.
Can I just stop you there?
This report is confidential.
I'm not going to say anything about the details.
Okay, that's fine.
I just want to cheque.
Thank you.
My question was why that wasn't reported as a matter of course to this committee in private
if need be and where those actions have been overseen and monitored going forward if there
haven't been overseen and monitored here as they relate to governance and assurance issues.
Thank you, Kate.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:43:32
So from a monitoring point of view, they are internally monitored by our devolution and
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 1:43:42
integrated settlement board internally that monitors performance against.
The actual actions themselves are actually monitored by CLG, so through the performance
board, so we have a twice yearly performance board.
We are just preparing for the first one that should be in November, at which point we will
have to report to CLG what we have done against those actions in terms of that.
So that is the internal and then external monitoring of those actions.
Just in future, where there are reports and not necessarily audits, but reviews like this
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 1:44:15
where they come up with assurance or governance issues, could we at least have sight of that
process, sight of what's happened and who's overseeing those, just to give us some sense
that's been handled properly.
We can certainly do that.
Because you have got, under access to information,
you know you've got rights to certain documentation.
We would do that outside of a committee environment.
They are confidential, so they need
to be briefed in a different way.
But I totally take on your point.
I don't know if Sarah wants to follow up on that.
Yeah, and I think it's an oversight
that we didn't present here.
I think it's something we should have done.
Sarah Eaton, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:44:46
So just to hold our hands up there,
I think we are monitoring our chair, the devolution
integrator support.
We are monitoring quite regularly the actions
and where we're not performing. Obviously not to go into any detail but I think some
of the things that you'll see in the report are things that probably you have discussed
here at governance and audit and when we did the work to feed into that session, there
were lots of common themes and alignment of themes that are being raised but we will definitely
in future fetch anything back through this process, albeit that it has got that confidential
status.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:45:21
Thank you, I think that's just another thing to think about in November in terms of what
we need to see as a committee because if we're anywhere of that report at this point, then
it makes you wonder what else there is in the ether that we're not seeing. So if we
could set a criteria for the sorts of things that we would like to see, that would probably
help ensure that we're not missing anything.
Okay, so we'll come back to that.
Thank you.
Okay, any other queries?
Dave again, yes.
One last thing.
David Merrett (Independent Member) - 1:45:55
Right at the end of this you've got three recommendations not agreed sections where
management responded and not agreed them and then in order to come back with a comment.
What's the status of those?
What would you like us to do with those?
So I think I agree with the audit position.
That's one I recommend that we require somebody to come and respond to those to the committee.
Bronwyn Baker, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:46:16
Thank you.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:46:20
Okay so if there's no further comments or queries the recommendation is that the committee
notes the updates on the outstanding order of actions.
Okay.
and all those in approve. Thank you. So Audit Item 12 is the external audit report for update.
Kate are you speaking to this first or are you going to pass over?
Alastair Newall (Auditor) Mazars - 1:46:58
Thank you Chair, thank you Kate and before I kick off I would like to introduce Makozi
to the committee.

12 External Audit Update

Mccozy is the Audit Manager at Forwiss -Mazars,
who is leading our audit work this year,
and I'll invite Mccozy to touch on the value for money work
from our report for you.
I'll take the report as read,
but I think it's helpful in the context
of the external audit progress
to just give you some further insight and updates
to what is in the report.
This is our audit strategy memorandum, so this is our audit plan for the 25 -26 year
covering both of our responsibilities.
Conscious of the position at the combined authority, we have highlighted the progress
on preparing for the rebuilding of assurance work so that we can move from the disclaimed
audit opinion to a qualified audit opinion and since the last meeting we've made really
good progress in the rebuilding risk assessment. We are, so far as an auditor, will be positively
asserting something. We're fairly confident that we will be able to apply what is called
the proof in total approach at the combined authority. That is subject to internal ratification
and confirmation, but I think we're fairly confident we can apply that, and that is a
significant step.
The alternative to the proof in total approach is carrying out historic testing on the unaudited
years, and as that goes back to the financial year 22 -23 for the combined authority, that
is a very significant undertaking.
So that is a positive step forward.
We've also progressed our risk assessment work
for rebuilding, which is crucial
to the rebuilding of assurance.
That process will identify the risks
and the related audit work that we need to carry out
on the unaudited opening reserve balances
which haven't been audited since 2021 -22.
and as I previously reported to you,
that is complex and will take time.
We've requested significant amounts of information
from the authority going back those four years
in order for us to complete the risk assessment
and we've got most if not all of that information.
There are some final bits which we're still having
conversations with the authorities finance team
to identify what information is available.
It may not be in quite the exact format
that we're looking for,
and so to work through those challenges,
which inevitably come from going back
such a long period of time when
there's probably no one at the authority
and neither Mccausie or myself were around
in those in that early year.
So we're working through that to reassure you
we have continued to work
collaboratively and proactively with the authority, it's just that it is a complex process that's
taking a lot of time and requiring that additional information.
The next stage, once we've completed our risk assessment, as I've said, is to go through
our internal review and moderation process.
As you will imagine, moving from a disclaimed audit opinion to an unqualified audit opinion
is from an audit firm perspective, a high risk area,
and is something that internally our firm,
and indeed all firm, all audit firms in this situation
are paying a great deal of attention to,
making sure that the risks that we identify
and the work that we do to address those risks
are the right risks and the work is the right work.
that ensures that we can rebuild assurance as effectively and as quickly as we can, focusing
our audit resource and the authorities finance team resource on the right areas.
To that extent, I do want to touch on the national position, because I know that's been
something that the authority and the committee has asked about in the past.
In the previous year as a firm, we rebuilt assurance
on a small number of relatively simple authorities.
This year we're focusing on some of the more complicated
authorities but taking a pilot approach to that.
So we're trying to rebuild assurance on a small number
of authorities and learning the lessons from those pilots.
For the combined authority, that's really helpful because we can learn the lessons from
those pilots and ensure that our work and our focus is in the right areas, learning
the lessons from some of the first adopters through this.
Nationally we're in no, for this Mizzars, we're in no separate, we're in no different
position than the other audit firms.
we're all going through this same process effectively in the same way.
So my focus for the 2526 audit of accounts, as I say, is on making sure that we've got
that risk assessment completed.
We will go through those internal processes when we've completed the risk assessments.
That will be in the near future.
And my aim is by the end of the audit process, we will have that risk assessment, the audit
procedures that we need to undertake to address those risks
and we can have those clear conversations with Kate
and her team around how long will that take
and bring back to you a clear and hopefully accurate
assessment of how long that might take,
whether that will be completed next year
or whether it would span two or more years.
Depends entirely on the risks and the responses
that we need to undertake.
And I genuinely couldn't give you a view on that
until we've gone through that process.
Consequently, for 25 -26, there would be an expectation
of a reduction in the audit fees,
similar to you've had in the past three years,
and that will be subject to the usual agreement
through the body who appoints us as the auditor,
public sector audit appointments.
In the report, you'll see in the audit fees section,
we highlight that we have been engaged
to provide a piece of assurance work on the warm homes grant for the authority.
That was discussed and agreed through the section 73 officer and I'll assure you from
an independence perspective that none of the audit team are undertaking that work.
That is a separate grants assurance team so there aren't any threats to any independence
from us undertaking that work which is really important for me to stress to you.
I'll touch very briefly on VFM and then hand over to Mccozy just to touch on the current
position on VFM, but just to say from our perspective, our responsibility on the value
for money work is unaffected by the disclaimer opinion and the impact on that.
That work, that VFM work continues unchanged as it does every year.
The approach is unchanged and that work is being completed as usual with no changes on
our approach.
Cosy, do you want to touch on the...
Thank you, Alistair.
Mr Makhosi Mazibia (Auditor) Mazars - 1:55:09
We have now completed our planning and risk assessment and have not identified any risks in the current financial year.
We have also completed our understanding of the arrangements that the Authority has and are currently going through the review process.
In terms of the previously reported significant weaknesses and other recommendations, we have
carried out the work that we've set out in the report and are undergoing the internal
consistency consultations to make sure that the conclusions that we've reached on whether
those significant weaknesses or recommendations are still relevant in 2526, and we'll be reporting
back in November and that will be laid out in the auditor's annual report.
And I will pause here and take any questions.
Okay, thank you for that.
Questions from the committee?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:56:12
Can I just raise a point then with the Alastair, or with officers actually probably. I'm very
aware that we're making, or that a lot of financial decisions are being made by the
authority on an ongoing basis, and very significant ones as well. Given that there is uncertainty
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:56:34
because we haven't had a full audit for a number of years, it's just what safeguarding
mechanisms are being put in place around financial decision making when we're not certain about
the financial position? I mean I would slightly, I am certain about
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 1:56:57
the financial position, I am comfortable around the, and if you look at where the issues have
been within the, historically around the audit, they have been around the statutory reporting,
actually not about the reporting of the INE position, so the cash -based operating profit,
it is historically issues around the MERS, for example, so it has been when it gets into
the statutory financial reporting piece.
So I am comfortable that we are not kind of operating at a position where we are.
I also am currently, as I say, in possession, I am not in possession, but I currently hold
reserves for the authority.
So I hold a 14 million pound general reserve
for one -off fiscal shocks.
And I currently am forecasting to have around 50 million
of operational risk reserves in a near -march reserve
to do that.
So that effectively does provide me
with some resilience in the event
that we do find anything.
What I would say is where we have found,
So we did some restatement of prior period in 25 -26 related to 24 -25.
It was actually favourable rather than negative in terms of bringing profit through.
Any other queries on that?
No?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:58:19
OK, so you'll bring something back to us in November, is that right?
Alastair Newall (Auditor) Mazars - 1:58:27
Yes, so in terms of the November meeting so the National Audit Office set a deadline for
auditors to issue what Mccozy said the auditors annual report which is the report that a draught
of the auditors annual report needs to be issued by the end of November.
So we will bring that we will have that issued for your November meeting that will include
our value for money commentary.
I'm going to be cautious because I'm an auditor, whether we've completed the risk assessment
work sufficient to give you a substantive update by your November committee meeting
is I think I would be cautious about whether we'd be in that position, but by the January
meeting I would be very much hoping that we would be in that position.
Thanks Alistair.
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:59:16
Okay, so there's no more queries on that report.
the recommendation is the committee notes the audit strategy memorandum for
25 26 and the second day lovely thank you very much and all those in favour
Nikki Deol Chief Legal Officer - 1:59:45
thank you so that brings us to the end of the meeting the next meeting is also
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 1:59:52
there's no any other businesses there there isn't that's a very good point
well could I raise something yes you may well this is a bit naive really but West
Yorkshire please so who audits West Yorkshire police that is me as well yes
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 2:00:06
We are the firm that audits them and I am the appointed auditor for the West Yorkshire
Police, yes.
So, do your reports come to this committee as well or not?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 2:00:23
No my reports for West Yorkshire Police go to the Chief Constable for West Yorkshire
Cllr Robin Cumming CA Member - 2:00:27
Police, they don't come here because that is a separate entity, that has a separate
audit and a separate audit opinion.
So where there are what I would caveat that with is where there are
Alastair Newall (Auditor) Mazars - 2:00:44
If there were to be any matters arising from our audit of the chief constable
Which are relevant to the combined authorities?
responsibilities
Then they would be reported to this committee for your responsibility from the command authority
But if they are purely chief constable related matters, they would not come to this committee
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 2:01:03
Just to clarify, I haven't had any of those matters by the way.
Cllr David Jenkins CA Member - 2:01:11
By the time I've been the auditor, so you haven't been missing anything that you should have part in.
It just seems like in a way we should have an overarching view and I'd have thought West Yorkshire Police because the Deputy Mayor is the Police Commissioner, whatever, and it just seems like I'm missing a gap.
Kate?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 2:01:30
So they are a separate legal entity who manage their own expenditure.
Our role is ultimately to scrutinise their activity.
Kate Taylor, Director West Yorkshire Combined Authority - 2:01:37
That is our role as a, and that is a deficit and that is our role.
So we receive money that we passport to them and then they are a separate legal entity
who then decides, you know, provides a plan of how they will do that and is deploying
and making the contracts of how they do that.
So the responsibility therefore for reporting that expenditure and producing a set of accounts
sits with that legal entity in there.
Obviously those figures are then audited, they come part of our group accounts ultimately
to do that and as Alistair says, if for example he found something misstated within West Yorkshire
Police and it was of a nature where it meant that my group accounts were also then materially
misstated we would need to consider making changes through there but they
they as an entity have their own IAC, Independent Insurance Committee who
oversees all the similar items ultimately that you see for West
Yorkshire combined authority for West Yorkshire Police.
Thanks Kate.
Does that answer your question Councillor Jenkins?
Debbie Simpson, Chair (Independent Member) - 2:02:51
Okay, so we've got quite a few actions from today.
I did receive an update on actions prior to this meeting, but I think what would be good
is if we start to include it as part of the report packet, if we can.
Is that okay?
And then we can track the actions through as a committee and just make sure we don't
lose anything.
I think that would be very useful.
Lovely.
So that does bring us to the end of the meeting then.
Thank you.
So the next meeting is on – oh, back.
Thank you.

13 Date of Next Meeting

12 External Audit Update

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13 Date of Next Meeting

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