Corporate Governance

The corporate governance framework is made up of all the arrangements put in place to ensure that priorities and outcomes are defined and delivered. It is all the systems which make sure these things can be done, that they can be done well, and that they can be done in an open, transparent and accountable way.

Good governance leads to good management, good performance, good stewardship of public money, good public engagement and, ultimately, good outcomes.

The council has adopted its own Local Code of Corporate Governance based on guidance called "Delivering Good Governance in Local Government" (CIPFA/SOLACE, 2016).  The Code has seven over-arching principles:-

• Behaving with integrity, demonstrating strong commitment to ethical values, and respecting the rule of law

• Ensuing openness and comprehensive stakeholder engagement

• Defining outcomes in terms of sustainable economic, social, and environmental benefits

• Determining the interventions necessary to optimise the achievement of the intended outcomes

• Determining the entity's capacity, including the capability of its leadership and the individuals within it

• Managing risks and performance through robust internal control and strong public financial management

• Implementing good practices in transparency, reporting, and audit to deliver effective accountability

• The Governance Principles Diagram shows the seven principles and how they interact. There is a short list of some of the key pieces of evidence for each principle.

Each principle is broken down into a list of elements.  Evidence of compliance is identified for each element and the Code is completed each year by adding that evidence, good or bad.  Compliance for each element is then assessed and scored red, amber or green. In 2023/24, 89% of the standards had green assessments. There were no red assessments.

In November 2023 the council put in place its Corporate Governance Strategy 2023/24 to 2027/28. It is one of six strategies supporting the Corporate Plan. They focus on developing and supporting the cultural and operational changes that are required to improve the performance and financial sustainability of the council. The Corporate Governance Strategy brings together the most significant contributors to good governance (audit, risk management, performance management, health and safety, information governance, information security, financial management). Its purpose is to maintain high standards of good corporate governance and maintain compliance with the Delivering Good Governance Framework and the council's Local Code of Corporate Governance.

The council must by law approve an annual governance statement. It is part of the council's annual accounts which are published and sent for external audit in June each year. The annual governance statement is presented to Governance & Risk Committee in June each year. 

The annual governance statement explains the council's governance arrangements and how they operated during the year. It highlights areas of concern or where work is required to maintain or improve standards.  The annual government statement provides an assurance about compliance based on:-

• the annual statutory review of the system of internal control reported to Audit Committee every June. The review for 2023/24 concluded that that system of control was sound
• annual compliance statements by senior officers in relation to significant council policies and procedures. The officers responsible gave assurances for 2023/24 that systems were operating effectively. Areas of concern were identified and explained
• the freshly-populated evidence-based Local Code of Corporate Governance. 89% of the standards had green assessments. There were no red assessments
• the progress made on areas of governance concern identified in previous years. Substantial progress had been made during the year

The conclusion and assurance for 2023/24 was that was that in a large and complex organisation, especially under significant funding and financial pressures, there are inevitably issues on which future work is required. However, the council and the West Lothian community can be assured that the council's corporate governance standards continue to have been substantially met in 2023/24. That assurance was reported to and accepted by Governance & Risk Committee in June 2024 when the annual governance statement was approved.

The council's external auditor presented its 2022/23 report to council in September 2023. The report for 2023/24 will be presented in September 2024. These were the key governance messages from the 2022/23 report:-

• The council has appropriate governance arrangements in place to support effective scrutiny, challenge and informed decision making
• The governance arrangements set out in the annual governance statement are appropriate and effective
• The council has created a clear vision through its new Corporate Plan 2023-28
• The council was effective in gathering the views of citizens to develop the council priorities and highly values and has acted on citizens' feedback through its consultation processes
•  There are effective and appropriate arrangements in place to plan the use of resources to sustain delivery of services into the medium term
• Effective financial management and control was in place with regular budget monitoring reports provided to the relevant committee and to full council
• There was an effective performance management framework in place, with reported service performance showing good performance against targets.
•  The council has good processes in place to encourage continuous improvement.

A summary report is presented to the council in September each year to give assurance to the whole council on its compliance with the principles of good governance.