Governance Reviews

Question

My Parish Council has finally had a Governance review but it is being treated as a confidential document
Yet an adjacent Council published theirs in full I will issue a FOI request but first has anyone had any experience as to the publication or not of such reviews ?

Answer 1

Can you describe specifically what you mean by the term governance review?

Is this like an out of sequence internal audit?

What were the terms of reference for the review - was it based upon JPAG or something else?

Maybe if there are critical elements of an individual there could be parts of the report redacted but the very essence of a 'governance review' should - surely - be to provide confidence to the PUBLIC that their local council is acting appropriately.

Bizarre to caveat it as confidential....

Answer 2

A Community Governance Review is conducted in the public domain.  How can your council possibly be treating as confidential.  And more to the point ... why?

Comments

It was paid for by the Parish Council and carried out by someone from NALC
As I said the Council nearby published theirs warts and all
This is the same Council who claim that once a resolution is agreed in public session what subsequently happens to it is confidential as it puts pressure on the Clerk
Plus the same Council that considered asking Councillors to come in early to read the supporting papers to the Agenda so they could be collected back and destroyed