Suspension of Financial Regulations

Question

There is a proposal to change the Council's Financial Regulations so that any Committee can suspend the FRs without reference to Full Council.  Is this normal?  Previously suspension of FRs had to be approved by Full Council.  The proposed FR reads: "The relevant committee or council may, by resolution, suspend any part of these Financial Regulations provided that reasons for the suspension are recorded and that an assessment of the risks arising has been drawn up and presented in advance to all members of the relevant committee or council.".  This would seem to remove all the controls that the FRs are there to provide.  It's also not clear that members of the public would get to see the reasons and risks associated with these suspensions.

Answer 1

I take the view that they are the Council's Financial Regulations and may therefore only be suspended by the Council. I can see no valid reason for delegating this function to a committee.

Comments

How timely that the next question on the forum relates to the loss of a significant sum of money through a failure to adhere to the financial regulations. A salutary lesson for us all.

Answer 2

Who proposed this and why?  I would say it isn't normal and should be voted against. A council that operates without any form of Financial regulations would only be  duty bound to comply with National Legislation.such as Local Government Act 1972, Section 137 and any applicable transparency codes.

Without  FR's who would approve expenditure, who would approve the issue of grants? Would the chair  just decide in the absence of FR's to spend money on whatever he or she fancied?  What would define the responsibilities of the RFO.

Comments

Thanks for the reply.  You may have misinterpreted my question.  There are FRs (based on the national template) - but a change has been made from the previous FRs to allow any Committee to suspend FRs if they want to, without reference to Full Council.  I see this as dangerous - the Council may find itself committed to expenditure by a Committee some of which have only three Councillors.

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Hi I didn't mis interpenetrate it!   I agree i is dangerous for a committee rather then full council to impose decisions. But once an FR is suspended by acommittee, anyone in the council could unilaterally do anything and say that the suspension of the FR empowered them to do it, whether it is the committee, chair, clerk or any other councillor.

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Sorry for misinterpreting your answer :-).  Glad we're in complete agreement!

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It was the Clerk that proposed this, as far as I know.