Agenda item

Report by Lorna Baxter, Executive Director Resources and Section 151 Officer

This report sets out updates to Risk Management and an overview of the latest strategic risk register which contains the Council’s most significant risks. The strategic risk register is proactively managed by the Senior Leadership Team and reported into the Strategic Leadership Board as part of the Council’s Business Management and Monitoring Reports. These combined reports contain performance, risk, and finance progress updates against the delivery of the current strategic plan priorities.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to note the Risk Management Update .

The Director of Transformation, Digital and Customer Experience and the Performance and Insight Team Leader introduced the report. They clarified that the Strategic Risk Register overview was from January rather than June 2025 because it was the last to have been considered by the Cabinet. They highlighted the following:

-       the Strategic Risk Register had been reviewed between March and April 2025

-       From 1 May 2025, core schemes would no longer feature on the register due to effective management at a programme level.

-       The Council’s Delivering the Future Together network was helping to cascade information about risk across the whole organisation.

-       Further review to the policy documentation would be brought to the next meeting on 16 July 2025.

The Committee asked officers whether they had calculated the provisional residual risk for Strategic Risk (SR) 11 – Section 106 – and SR12 – Local Government Reform. Officers said that this would be discussed at the Senior Leadership Team (SLT)’s workshop on 25 June 2025; they would report back to the Committee in due course. However, they also said that they were hopeful that the risk in relation to SR11 would be reduced following a report to the Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 23 April 2025. Officers were asked relatedly if local government reform to pension funds was applicable to SR12. Officers said that the question would be taken up by the Pension Fund Committee.

For the benefit of new members of the Committee, officers clarified that inherent risk referred to risk without controls put in place to reduce its probability and mitigate its consequences. They added that as was the case here, residual risk may not change on a month-to-month basis. However, officers stressed that they could manage risks, and they highlighted that there was a new risk reporting platform, which enabled them to track and monitor their work in this area.

The Committee asked officers if the Council was talking to other local authorities to compare and learn from what they might be doing to mitigate risks. Officers said that risks 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10 were applicable to all local authorities. Otherwise, they said that it was difficult to compare across organisations because there was no uniform way of measuring risk. However, they said that networking took place between local authorities, where risks were discussed. Officers also said that through business management and monitoring, the team regularly compared their performance with that of other Councils in relation to risk.

The Committee also asked officers about the risk of flooding in Oxfordshire. Officers clarified that a five-by-five scoring matrix was deployed for all risks, including the risk of flooding. However, they also said that the SLT were discussing whether flooding should be considered separately in relation to community resilience to the overall risk; the Committee would be updated accordingly. Officers added that the Council agreed in the budget to £2.2 million of investment for 2025-26 to reduce the risk of flooding.

Finally, the Committee asked officers about the use of the word ‘undeliverable’ in the report. Officers clarified that it had been used to refer to residual cost to the Council in cases where the total cost for a project was not covered by funds claimed by a specified date, especially considering inflationary pressures. However, they also said that more funding was available from central government to cover those pressures. Officers said that where the word undeliverable featured in the report, things may have changed in the last six months, and they would update the Committee in due course. 

RESOLVED to note the Risk Management Update.