There were no urgent items of business.

There were no declarations of interest.

Comments from the Group on the new Rules included:

1)    Thresholds of £1 million for key decision capital spend was too high.

Rationale had been that this reflected the increased costs of services and goods. There were checks and balances although this would rely on compliance.

2)    There was little democratic oversight of the decision making. Members wondered if:

a.    Wording could be included in the Rules which required reporting of a percentage of decisions to Audit or O & S each year.

b.    Suggestion that an extra column be added to the table on p.91 of the agenda to signpost where decisions could be quality checked through the governance structure.

Members were reminded that the Council was under central government directions which it had to comply with in terms of officer decision making.

c.    Democratic oversight of tender process included to ensure quality of procurement and performance of contract.

Member informed of the creation of the Procurement Board reporting to Standards & Audit Committee to quality assure this.

3)    p.89 Strengthen the wording around the requirement for a written report to be provided before a decision is made. Replace ‘must’ with ‘will’

4)    It was felt £500,000 was too high a threshold for an officer decision in consultation with Portfolio Holder.

5)    Typo of £100,000,000 on p. 92 picked up and corrected.

Members were informed that these new rules provided a framework and were the first step in ensuring good practice within finance at Thurrock. Compliance and culture change was important to its application and success.

Members were informed that extra resources were being investigated to provide capacity to the constitution review as a whole. The CWG would be informed of the outcomes of this investigation when ready.