Cumberland Council: External assurance review 2024-25

The council should undertake a formal review against the CIPFA financial management code.

The council should consider appointing an Independent Chair of the Audit Committee and review its arrangements for receiving customer and resident's views on service delivery at Scrutiny Committees.

The Audit Committee should incorporate into its work plan regular items on the council's finances, in particular the Medium-Term Financial Plan in order to assess future financial risk.

The Council should develop a financial training programme for all members focused on the options available for the council to become financially sustainable.

The council should prepare a plan that identifies what a good financial function would comprise, including the systems for integrated financial management and identify the short; medium and long term investment required to achieve that.

The council should reconsider elevating the role of the Chief Finance Officer (Section 151 Officer) to a higher level within the management structure, ideally as a direct report to the Chief Executive. This would enhance the visibility and influence of the financial perspective in the decision-making process.

The council's review of its strategic risk register should enable the Audit Committee to adopt a proactive approach by focusing on future risk trends and incorporating a performance-based assessment of risk mitigation efforts. This approach should evaluate how effectively mitigation actions are reducing the overall level of strategic risks.

The Improvement Panel should undertake an in-depth independent review of the council's budget based on a monthly 'run rate' approach to satisfy themselves of the achievement (as intended) of a balanced outturn at the end of 2024/25 and into 2025/26.

The council should review and prioritise its transformation and savings programmes and subject both them and the emerging Contingency Plan to scrutiny by the Improvement Panel.

As part of its high-level budget planning exercise for 2025/26 the council needs to demonstrate how it can achieve a balanced budget in that year and at the same time put into general reserves the amount planned to be used to support the 2024/25 budget.

The council should not introduce any further schemes to the capital programme unless they are critical provably 'invest to save' or funded by external grant.

The council should undertake a capacity review and consider whether the appointment of third-party delivery partners would ensure the progress of the programme in a timely way whilst retaining overall control.

The council should explore recruitment of a third-party commercial property agent to develop a programme of assets disposal which, whilst respecting the council's asset management strategy, creates the opportunity for significant disposals in the short to medium term.

The council needs to review whether the revenue consequences of its borrowing are sustainable.

Provision should be made for the Chair of Scrutiny Committees and the Audit Committee to attend at their request, and with the agreement of the Executive, meetings of the Executive to review issues of concern.

The council should continue to review the capacity within its Performance Management function to ensure it can deliver the necessary information to the Executive to enable it to fulfil its strategic oversight of the council plan.

The development of a suite of plans supporting the Council Plan should be given priority to replace legacy Council Plans.

The council should consider reviewing its scheme of delegation for decision-making authority to ensure it can act promptly in key areas.

The council should prioritise the harmonisation of pay grades, terms, and conditions across the council.

The council needs to consider what a fully resourced corporate function would look like and detail a set of proposals that over-time would provide for a robustly functioning corporate centre. This should include a plan to ensure properly integrated corporate finance (including procurement) and HR functionality.

The council should compile a detailed comparative database of relative costs per head and service performance to assist and challenge budget planning for 2025/26 by focussing on Value for Money.

The council should re-assess its suite of indicators: resolving the status of those that are not reported on; comprehensively reviewing action that can be taken to resolve those that are RAG rated 'red'; seeking a stretched target to make improvement a priority and seeking to increase the number of indicators for which a consistent comparator is available.

The council should develop a regular way of testing customer satisfaction with the full range of services. Corporate complaints improvement actions and learning should be provided for members.

The council's Leadership Team should ensure that there is a much closer link between the Council Plan priorities, budget setting and service planning and that in future years the business planning cycle should start much earlier.

The council should ensure that all service areas develop and maintain detailed Service Plans, and that these are reviewed and updated regularly. This will facilitate a more consistent approach to planning across the council.