CODE OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

1. 1.1 ‘Corporate governance’ describes how an organisation directs and controls what it is accountable for. This Code of Corporate Governance is a public statement setting out how we, the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, will fulfil the principles of good governance in practice.
2. 
   
3. 1.2 By governance, we mean the arrangements that are put in place to ensure that our intended outcomes (the results of our activity) are defined and achieved. Our Governance Framework comprises the systems and processes, cultures, and values by which we direct and control our activities. This framework ensures we operate effectively, efficiently, and ethically and is designed to enable delivery of our plans and strategies, ensuring governance support inclusive growth.
4. 
   
5. 1.3 To demonstrate good corporate governance, we will carry out our functions in a way that shows accountability, transparency, effectiveness, integrity, and inclusivity. Good governance is about making sure we do the right things, in the right way for the right people, in a timely, inclusive, open, honest and accountable manner. Good governance will enable us to pursue our vision and deliver our agreed objectives in the most effective and efficient manner, bringing about better outcomes for the residents, communities, businesses and visitors to the region.
6. 
   
7. 1.4 Our business will also be conducted in accordance with the ‘Seven Principles of Public Life’ identified in The Nolan Committee Report (1995) and in accordance with the Cabinet Office Code of Conduct for Board Members of Public Bodies.
8. 
   
9. 1.5 This Code will be reviewed annually to ensure it continues to be relevant and fit for purpose. The effectiveness of the governance arrangements and internal control systems described in this Code will also be reviewed annually and the review outcomes published in an Annual Governance Statement (AGS). The AGS will describe the governance structures and arrangements in place and will report on their effectiveness, including performance against the Code. It will also highlight any significant areas for improvement and identify actions to be taken to address them in the forthcoming year.

1. 2.1 We have mapped our Governance Framework against the principles of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) / Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) Framework Delivering Good Governance in Local Government 2016 and the 2025 Addendum. These principles are dynamic and involve continuous evaluation, review, and improvement. The following sections describe how we fulfil the requirements of the seven principles.

3. (A) Good governance means behaving with integrity, demonstrating a strong commitment to ethical values and showing respect for the rule of the law

1. 3.1 We recognise that we are accountable not only for how much money we spend, but for the impact our decisions and actions have on people and places across South Yorkshire. Acting with integrity requires us to use the resources entrusted to us responsibly and fairly, to act openly in the public interest, and to recognise the real‑world consequences of our choices. Our approach to integrity and ethical governance is grounded in the values and principles set out in our Corporate Plan. This means thinking first about those who are too often left out or left behind, making decisions transparently and with humility, and ensuring that ethical behaviour actively supports more inclusive, equitable and sustainable outcomes for current and future generations. We also have a duty to act in the public interest by following the law and government policy. This means we must be able to show that our decisions and actions are appropriate, fair, and lawful, and that we have clear arrangements in place to support high standards of behaviour and respect for the rule of law.
2. 
   
3. 3.2 We do this by

Behaving with integrity:

• Ensuring members, co-opted members and officers consistently demonstrate honesty, fairness and accountability and behave with integrity, upholding the highest standards of conduct and behaviour and leading a culture where acting in the public interest is visible and consistently demonstrated thereby protecting the reputation of the organisation.
• Ensuring members take the lead in establishing, promoting and modelling clear organisational values and ways of working for the organisation and its officers and that they are communicated and understood.
• Demonstrating, communicating and embedding the standard operating principles or values through Codes of Conduct for Members and Officers, which are incorporated into the SYMCA Constitution and apply equally across members from constituent and non‑constituent authorities, advisory bodies, and those acting on behalf of the organisation. Our Codes require members to have regard to the Seven Principles of Public Life (the Nolan Principles) and provide the ethical framework for decision‑making and leadership across the organisation. These are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that they are operating effectively and supported by training and periodic refresher training for members and officers.
• Having in place clear protocols for the declaration and management of interests—both pecuniary and non‑pecuniary—as well as requirements relating to gifts and hospitality. Declarations are published to promote transparency and public confidence and extend to the Business Advisory Board and Mayor’s Economic Council, whose terms of reference form part of the Constitution.
• Members and Officers lead by example using our values and principles as a framework for decision making and behaviour guiding the conduct of meetings, strategic choices, partnership working, and the design and delivery of services. This includes being open about difficult choices, tradeoffs and uncertainty, and explaining decisions clearly and honestly to residents and stakeholders.

Demonstrating strong commitment to ethical values:

• Seeking to establish, monitor and maintain ethical standards and performance across all aspects of our governance and operations.
• Underpinning personal behaviour with ethical values and ensuring they are embedded in all aspects of our culture and operations.
• Developing and maintaining robust policies and procedures, reviewed regularly, which place emphasis on agreed ethical values, recognising that ethical governance includes considering fairness, equality and distributional impact, and ensuring that ethical standards are applied in a way that actively contributes to reducing inequalities and building trust with communities across South Yorkshire.
• Setting out in our Constitution the specific role of the Monitoring Officer in promoting and maintaining high standards of conduct, providing advice on ethical issues, and ensuring the effective operation of the Codes of Conduct. This is supported by clear arrangements for reporting and investigating concerns, including a Whistleblowing Policy and a Fraud Response Plan, reflecting our commitment to openness, probity and accountability.
• Ensuring that external providers of services on our behalf are required to act with integrity and in compliance with the ethical standards expected by us, facilitated through standard contractual clauses requiring compliance with applicable laws and ethical standards, including those relating to anti-bribery, anti-corruption, human rights, information governance and environmental responsibilities.

Respecting the rule of law:

• Ensuring members and officers demonstrate a strong commitment to the rule of the law as well as adhering to relevant laws and regulations.
• Creating the conditions to ensure that the statutory officers, other key post holders, and members, can fulfil their responsibilities in accordance with legislative and regulatory requirements.
• Ensuring that robust financial management and control arrangements are in place, supported by the statutory responsibilities of the Section 73 Officer, effective financial regulations, and internal control frameworks, to provide assurance that expenditure is lawful, properly authorised, and represents value for money while supporting long-term, sustainable outcomes aligned to our priorities.
• Striving to optimise the use of the full powers available to us for the benefit of citizens, communities, and other stakeholders across South Yorkshire.
• Dealing with breaches of legal and regulatory provisions effectively and investigating them thoroughly and promptly through established internal audit or other appropriate arrangements with organisational learning communicated, improvement actions undertaken and policy updates made to ensure lessons learned are acted upon.
• Ensuring corruption and misuse of power are dealt with effectively and robustly in accordance with established policies, ensuring public confidence in the integrity and legality of our governance arrangements and that organisational learning, improvement actions and policy updates are communicated and embedded so that lessons are acted upon.

4. (B) Good governance means ensuring openness and comprehensive stakeholder engagement

1. We recognise that we exist to serve the public good and that openness, transparency and meaningful engagement are essential to building trust and delivering better outcomes. Good governance requires us not only to be open about what we do, but to involve people and partners early and meaningfully in shaping decisions that affect them. We are committed to making decisions with people wherever possible, particularly where those decisions have the greatest impact. This includes recognising that when people do not engage, it is our responsibility to reflect on how we engage, remove barriers, and improve our approach.
2. 
   
3. 4.1 We demonstrate this by:

• Ensuring an open culture through demonstrating, documenting and communicating our commitment to openness, supported by a culture of transparency, reflection, constructive challenge, self-assessment and learning, through routinely publishing agendas, reports and minutes, Codes of Conduct and governance policies, and by holding MCA Board and statutory committee meetings in public.
• Making decisions that are open about actions, plans, resource use, forecasts, outputs and outcomes, clearly explaining how evidence, stakeholder input and lived experience where relevant has informed those decisions. Where confidentiality is necessary, we provide a clear and proportionate justification explaining the reason for keeping a decision confidential.
• Formally documenting the rationale for our decisions in committee reports and decision records, including where relevant how engagement feedback and equality considerations have influenced the recommendations and retaining them as part of the authority’s governance and audit trail.
• Providing clear reasoning and evidence for decisions in both public records and explanations to stakeholders and being explicit about the criteria, rationale and considerations used setting out the expected impacts and consequences for residents, communities, businesses and service users recognising that outcomes should be understood in terms of lived experience as well as performance metrics.
• Using formal and informal consultation and engagement to inform decision-making and determine the most appropriate and effective interventions/courses of action.

Engaging comprehensively with institutional stakeholders

1. Institutional stakeholders are the other organisations that we need to work with to improve services and outcomes (such as commercial partners and suppliers as well as other public or third sector organisations) or organisations to which they are accountable. We recognise that effective partnership working is essential to achieving our objectives, particularly where outcomes depend on shared responsibility, pooled resources and joint delivery.
2. 
   
3. 4.2 To do this we:

• Engage purposefully and proactively with institutional stakeholders to ensure that the purpose, objectives and intended outcomes for each stakeholder relationship are clear so that collaborative working can maximise impact, manage shared risks and deliver value across South Yorkshire.
• Develop formal and informal partnerships to allow for resources to be used more efficiently and outcomes achieved more effectively across South Yorkshire.
• Ensure that partnerships are based on:
  • trust
  • a shared commitment to change
  • a culture that promotes and accepts challenge among partners
  and that the added value of partnership working is explicit.

Engaging with individual citizens and service users effectively

1. We recognise that meaningful engagement with residents, communities, businesses and service users is essential to achieving inclusive and sustainable outcomes. We are committed to enabling participation that is accessible, proportionate and influential, particularly for those communities and groups whose voices are too often unheard.
2. 
   
3. 4.3 To do this we:

• Maintain a clear approach to when and how we consult, involve or coproduce with communities and stakeholders, ensuring engagement is proportionate, timely and clearly linked to the decisions required and outcomes being sought.
• Ensure that communication methods are effective, inclusive, and accessible and that members and officers are clear about their roles with regard to community engagement including adapting approaches to reduce barriers.
• Encourage, collect and evaluate the views and lived experiences of communities, citizens, service users and organisations of different backgrounds across South Yorkshire including reference to future needs, using this insight alongside data and analysis to inform decisions.
• Implement effective feedback mechanisms so that participants can clearly see how their views have been taken into account and why particularly choices have been made.
• Balance feedback from more established or vocal stakeholder groups with those who are often less heard to ensure inclusivity and to promote inclusivity and fairness in shaping strategies, plans and services.
• Take account of the impact of decisions on future generations of taxpayers and service users recognising our responsibility to steward resources and opportunities in a way that supports long‑term wellbeing, sustainability and trust.

5. (C) Good governance means outcomes are defined in terms of sustainable economic, social, and environmental benefits

1. We recognise that our responsibilities affect people and places both now and in the future. Good governance requires us to define clearly the outcomes we are seeking, to plan and act in a way that is sustainable over the long term, and to ensure that our decisions deliver tangible benefits for residents, communities and businesses across South Yorkshire. We define success not only by what is delivered, but by whether people genuinely experience positive change in their lives. This means focusing on inclusive outcomes, considering who benefits from our decisions, and thinking first about those who are too often left out or left behind.
2. 
   
3. 5.2 To ensure this we, define outcomes by:

• Having a clear vision, which is an agreed formal statement of our purpose and intended outcomes containing appropriate performance indicators, which provide the basis for our overall strategy, planning and ambitions to build a wealthier, healthier, happier and safer South Yorkshire. This vision is embedded through our long-term strategies and investment plans, which are regularly reviewed and refreshed to ensure they remain aligned with South Yorkshire’s changing economic, social and environmental context and evolving needs, opportunities and challenges.
• Ensuring our decision-making is supported by our formal governance and assurance arrangements, ensuring that all decisions are aligned to agreed outcomes, demonstrate value for money, best value and compliance with statutory duties.
• Applying a strategic and consistent approach to commissioning, aligned to agreed outcomes and assurance processes, working with constituent local authorities and delivery partners to align investment, manage shared risks and maximise outcomes for South Yorkshire. This approach supports effective collaboration, clear accountability and the coordination of activity across organisational and geographic boundaries.
• Specifying the intended impacts for residents, businesses and communities, including the expected changes for citizens and service users in the short, medium and long term, recognising that transformative outcomes may be realised over many years.
• Monitoring progress against agreed outcomes regularly, using both quantitative data and qualitative insight, and using learning from this monitoring to adapt plans, investments and interventions over time to support the delivery of sustainable long-term benefits.
• Delivering defined outcomes on a sustainable basis, ensuring that programmes and projects are affordable over their whole life, deliver value for money and are capable of being maintained over time, taking account of future funding scenarios, capacity constraints and environmental impacts.
• Identifying, monitoring and managing risks to delivery and the achievement of outcomes.
• Managing stakeholder and service user expectations effectively and transparently, particularly where difficult choices are required to prioritise investment and make the best use of resources across South Yorkshire.

Consider economic, social and environmental benefits through:

• The use of proportionate business cases, options appraisals and impact assessments to support decision‑making, ensuring that trade‑offs between economic, social and environmental benefits are explicit, transparent and justified and ensuring that all decisions are supported by our formal governance and assurance arrangements, demonstrate value for money, best value and compliance with statutory duties.
• Taking a longer-term, place-based view of decision-making, recognising South Yorkshire’s diverse communities and geographies, taking account of risk and cumulative impact, and acting transparently where there are potential conflicts between our intended outcomes and short-term factors such as the political cycle or financial constraints.
• Determining the wider public interest associated with balancing conflicting interests and competing priorities between achieving the various economic, social and environmental benefits, through consultation where possible, in order to ensure appropriate trade-offs.
• Ensure fair and inclusive access to services and opportunities by embedding inclusion into strategy and investment decisions, targeting resources where they will have the greatest impact, removing practical barriers to access, and working with partners to address inequalities between places, communities and people.

6. (D) Good governance means determining the interventions necessary to optimise the achievement of the intended outcomes

1. 6.1 We recognise that achieving our intended outcomes requires us to select the right combination of interventions, using our powers, resources and influence in a deliberate and proportionate way. Good governance ensures that decisions about interventions are informed by evidence, insight and engagement, and that they make best use of limited resources to deliver maximum public value. We aim to design and deliver interventions that are evidence-led, user-focused and responsive to place. This includes recognising the importance of learning, adaptation and innovation in addressing complex challenges and delivering meaningful improvements in people’s lives.
2. 
   
3. 6.2 We do this through:

Determining interventions:

• Ensuring decision‑makers receive objective, robust and evidence‑based analysis of a range of policy, investment, and delivery options, clearly setting out how intended outcomes will be achieved, the associated risks and uncertainties, and the implications for value for money and best value, regardless of how services are provided.
• Using insight and feedback from residents, service users, businesses, and partners, including lived experience, to inform decisions about service improvement, or where services are no longer required, enabling prioritisation of competing demands within limited resources, including workforce capacity, skills, land, and assets, while considering longer‑term impacts.

Planning interventions:

• Establishing and implementing robust planning and control cycles that cover strategic and operational plans, priorities, and targets, enabling clear line of sight between objectives, interventions, and outcomes.
• Engaging constructively with internal and external stakeholders, including constituent local authorities, delivery partners, and communities, to shape how services, programmes and investments are planned, designed, and delivered.
• Considering and monitoring risks facing each partner when working collaboratively, including shared risks.
• Ensuring arrangements are flexible and agile so that the mechanisms for commissioning and delivering services can be adapted to changing policy, funding, economic or environmental or community circumstances.
• Establishing proportionate and meaningful key performance indicators (KPIs) as part of the planning or commissioning process enabling the performance and impact of services, programmes and projects to be measured and evaluated over time and key lessons to be captured.
• Ensuring capacity and data capability exists to generate the information required to review service quality, performance and outcomes regularly to support continuous improvement.
• Preparing budgets in accordance with objectives, strategies, and the medium-term financial plan.
• Informing medium and long-term resource planning, aligned to our objectives and priorities, by drawing up realistic estimates of revenue and capital expenditure aimed at developing a sustainable funding strategy that balances competing demands.

Optimising achievement of intended outcomes:

• Ensuring the medium-term financial strategy integrates and balances service priorities, affordability and other resource constraints supporting informed decision-making and sustainable delivery of intended outcomes.
• Ensuring the budgeting process is all-inclusive, taking into account the full lifecycle costs of operations over the medium and longer term.
• Ensuring the medium-term financial strategy sets the context for ongoing decisions on significant delivery issues or responses to changes in the external environment, including responses to emerging risks, external shocks or changes in funding or policy that may arise during the budgetary period in order for outcomes to be achieved while optimising resource usage.
• Maximising the achievement of social value through service planning, commissioning and delivery, ensuring investment decisions support good work and skills, stronger and more inclusive communities, environmental sustainability, and a resilient local economy across South Yorkshire.
• Using formal self-assessment, performance review and continuous improvement processes established through our Monitoring and Evaluation Framework to assess value for money, challenge effectiveness, learn lessons and inform improvements.

7. (E) Good governance means developing the entity's capacity, including the capability of its leadership and the individuals within it

1. 7.1 We recognise that achieving our objectives depends on having the right structures, leadership, skills and organisational culture in place. Good governance requires us to ensure that we have sufficient capacity and capability to discharge our responsibilities effectively, respond to changing demands and deliver outcomes that matter to the people and places we serve. We are committed to inclusive and values-led leadership, building a learning organisation, and creating an environment in which people feel supported, empowered and able to perform at their best while delivering public value.
2. 
   
3. 7.2 We develop our capacity by:

• Reviewing operations, performance and use of assets on a regular basis to ensure their continuing effectiveness, efficiency and alignment with strategic priorities and intended outcomes.
• Regularly assessing organisational performance and effectiveness through substantive reviews of SYMCA’s capacity and capability, ensuring that our structure, resources and skills remain aligned to current and emerging responsibilities, including further phases of devolution and evolving expectations.
• Improving resource use through proportionate benchmarking, review and evaluation ensuring that resources are targeted where they will have the greatest impact on agreed priorities and outcomes.
• Recognising the benefits of partnerships and collaborative working across South Yorkshire and beyond, where added value, shared expertise, resilience, and joint delivery can improve outcomes and maximise public value.
• Developing and maintaining an effective workforce plan encompassing recruitment, development, appraisal, and succession planning, to support the strategic allocation of resources and delivery of our vision.

1. 7.3 We develop the capability of our leadership and other individuals by:

• Maintaining protocols to ensure that elected and appointed leaders have a shared understanding of responsibilities, mutual respect, constructive challenge and effective collective leadership.
• Publishing and maintaining a statement that specifies the types of decisions that are delegated and those reserved for the collective decision making of the MCA Board.
• Ensuring member and officer protocols, that support a culture of empowerment, accountability, transparency and respectful challenge are formally documented, kept under regular review, and supported by guidance to ensure consistent application.
• Ensuring statutory officers operate in accordance with the relevant Codes of Practice on Good Governance and professional standards, and that these are embedded within SYMCA’s governance arrangements.
• Ensuring that Members, the Mayor, the MCA Board and Chief Executive have clearly defined and distinctive leadership roles within a structure whereby the Chief Executive leads in implementing strategy and managing the delivery of services and other outputs set by members and each provides a check and a balance for each other’s authority.
• Ensuring arrangements are in place for the statutory Head of Paid Service function, with clear responsibility for organisational management, staffing, and operational leadership.
• Ensuring financial management roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and aligned to the CIPFA Financial Management Code and the relevant CIPFA Statement on the Role of the Chief Financial Officer, ensuring effective stewardship, sustainability, and statutory compliance.
• Maintaining clear arrangements for the discharge of the Monitoring Officer function, ensuring independent oversight of legality, governance, and ethical standards.
• Developing the capabilities of members and senior officers to achieve effective leadership and to enable the organisation to respond successfully to changing legal and policy demands as well as economic, political, and environmental changes and risks by:
  • ensuring members and officers have access to an appropriate induction tailored to their role and that ongoing training and development matching individual and organisational requirements is available and encouraged.
  • ensuring induction and development programmes are reviewed regularly to ensure they remain effective and aligned to organisational priorities and changing legal, policy and operational environments.
  • ensuring members and officers have the appropriate skills, knowledge, resources, and support to fulfil their roles and responsibilities and ensuring that they are able to update their knowledge on a continuing basis.
  • ensuring personal, organisational, and system-wide development through shared learning opportunities, reflection, peer review and learning from experience and failures as well as lessons learnt from governance weaknesses both internal and external.
• Ensuring structures and processes are in place to encourage public participation and engagement with our work.
• Taking steps to consider the leadership’s own effectiveness and ensuring leaders are open to constructive feedback from peer review and inspections.
• Holding officers to account through regular performance reviews that recognise achievement and take into account training, development, and succession needs.
• Ensuring arrangements are in place to maintain the health and wellbeing of the workforce and support individuals in maintaining their own physical and mental wellbeing, recognising that this is essential to sustained performance and positive organisational culture.

8. (F) Good governance means managing risks and performance through robust internal control and strong public financial management

1. 8.1 We recognise that the effective delivery of our objectives depends on strong governance arrangements that support robust risk management, performance management and public financial management. Good governance requires us to anticipate and manage uncertainty, safeguard public resources, and ensure that performance and risk are monitored in a way that supports informed, transparent decision‑making. We are committed to using risk, performance and financial management not only as control mechanisms, but as tools for learning, improvement and accountability, enabling us to respond effectively to challenge, complexity and change.
2. 
   
3. 8.2 We do this through:

Effective Risk Management

• Embedding risk management across all activities and decision‑making, ensuring that risks and opportunities are identified, assessed and managed proportionately, and considered alongside performance, affordability, and deliverability.
• Implementing robust and integrated risk management arrangements, with clear ownership and regular review to ensure that they are working effectively.
• Ensuring that responsibilities for managing individual risks are clearly allocated.
• The Executive Leadership Team and the Audit Committee review risks regularly, with escalating risks reported to the MCA Board.
• Considering financial, operational, and strategic risks jointly through integrated performance and budget reporting, ensuring that affordability, deliverability, and risk appetite are assessed together supporting resilience and sustainability.

Effective Performance Management

• Monitoring service delivery, programme implementation, and outcome achievement effectively including planning, specification, execution, and independent post implementation review to understand impact as well as activity.
• Making decisions based on relevant, clear objective evidence and analysis advising decision makers on the implications, risks and opportunities inherent in our financial, social, and environmental position.
• Ensuring a formal, effective scrutiny function is in place which provides independent and constructive challenge and debate on performance, policies, objectives and decision-making, with responses and actions tracked and reported on, before, during and after decisions are made thereby enhancing our accountability and performance and that of any organisation for which we are responsible.

Robust Internal Control

• Aligning the risk management strategy and policies on internal control with achieving strategic objectives and mayoral priorities.
• Evaluating and monitoring risk management and internal control on a regular basis.
• Ensuring effective counter fraud and anti-corruption, including a fraud risk assessment cycle, awareness and training and whistleblowing arrangements are in place and reviewed regularly in line with the Code of Practice on Managing the Risk of Fraud and Corruption (CIPFA 2014).
• Structuring our Corporate Assurance Framework around the Three Lines Model, setting out how management, risk and compliance functions, and internal audit collectively provide assurance to the Board and Audit Committee.
• Ensuring additional assurance on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the framework of governance, risk management and control is provided by the internal auditor aligned to Global Internal Audit Standards (GIAS) and the Code of Practice on the Governance of Internal Audit in the UK Public Sector (CIPFA 2025).
• Ensuring an audit committee, which is independent of the executive and accountable to the MCA Board:
  • provides a further source of effective assurance regarding arrangements for managing risk and maintaining an effective control environment.
  • undertakes the core functions set out in CIPFA’s Audit Committees: Practical Guidance for Local Authorities and the Police (CIPFA 2022), including governance, risk, financial reporting, internal and external audit oversight.
  • is listened to and its recommendations are acted upon.
  • ensuring governance and assurance arrangements across subsidiary companies, partnerships, franchised services, arm’s-length bodies, and joint ventures are proportionate to risk, with reporting and audit rights clearly defined.

Good Data Management

• Ensuring effective, fair, and lawful arrangements, and clear policies and procedures are in place for the safe collection, storage, use and sharing of data, including processes to safeguard personal and sensitive data.
• Ensuring effective arrangements are in place and operating effectively when sharing data with other bodies.
• Reviewing and auditing regularly the quality and accuracy of data used in decision making and performance and outcome monitoring.
• Ensuring that data subjects are informed why their personal information is being collected and how it will be processed.
• Establishing clear policies for cyber security and resilience to minimise the risk of cyber incidents.
• Ensuring clear ownership for information assets and data sets to ensure security, integrity and confidentiality risks are managed effectively.
• Ensuring all officers are aware of the need for good data management and cyber risk awareness by providing training and awareness sessions upon induction and regularly thereafter.
• Ensuring that third party suppliers have good data governance in place and are able to continue to provide a level of service in the event of a cyber incident.
• Maintaining oversight of cyber security, digital, AI and information security risks, ensuring governance arrangements for AI-enabled decision making are robust and understood, and that such technologies are used responsibly and proportionately.
• Ensuring regular, independent testing of cyber security measures which are reported on and escalated appropriately with findings acted upon in a timely manner.
• Ensuring key cyber, digital, and AI‑related risks are reported through the corporate risk and assurance framework to the Audit Committee and MCA Board.

Strong Public Financial Management

• Ensuring financial management supports both long-term achievement of strategic outcomes and short-term financial and operational performance, in line with the principles of the CIPFA Financial Management Code.
• Ensuring well-developed financial management is integrated at all levels of planning and control, including management of financial risks and controls.
• Maintaining medium and long‑term financial planning arrangements that reflect affordability, sustainability, deliverability, and risk enabling informed tradeoffs and responsible stewardship of public funds.
• Assessing and reviewing financial management arrangements against the CIPFA Financial Management Code and reporting assurance to the Board and Audit Committee.

Our governance, risk management and internal control framework is reviewed at least annually, and updated as necessary to reflect changes in legislation, delivery models, risk exposure, and relevant best‑practice guidance.

9. (G) Good governance means implementing good practices in transparency, reporting and audit to deliver effective accountability

1. 9.1 We recognise that effective accountability depends on transparency, clear reporting and robust assurance. Good governance requires us to explain not only what decisions we make, but why we make them, how resources are used, and what difference our actions make. Accountability is about enabling people, partners and stakeholders to understand, scrutinise and engage meaningfully with our work, and about being open to challenge, learning and improvement.
2. 
   
3. 9.2 We implement good practice in the following ways:

Transparency

• Writing and communicating reports for the public and other stakeholders in a fair, balanced and understandable style appropriate to the intended audience and ensuring that they are accessible and published in accordance with statutory access to information requirements on our website.
• Striking a balance between providing the right amount of information, explaining context, options, risks, impacts, and recommendations, to satisfy transparency demands and enhance public scrutiny while ensuring information is proportionate, accessible, and not unduly onerous to produce or understand.

Reporting

• Report at least annually on performance, value for money and stewardship of resources to stakeholders in a timely and understandable way linking activity and expenditure to outcomes and intended impact.
• Ensuring members and senior management own the results reported including explaining progress, challenges, and any corrective action being taken.
• Ensuring robust arrangements for assessing the extent to which the principles contained in this Code have been applied and publishing the results on this assessment, including any learning and an action plan for improvement and evidence to demonstrate good governance (the annual governance statement).
• Ensuring that this Code is applied to jointly managed or shared service organisations as appropriate.
• Ensuring the performance information that accompanies the financial statements is prepared on a consistent and timely basis and the statements allow for comparison with other similar organisations.

Assurance and Effective Accountability

• Maintaining arrangements that ensure timely, open and constructive engagement with external audit, internal audit, inspectors and regulators, including providing the information and support required to enable effective assurance, inspection and review activity.
• Ensuring that recommendations for corrective action made by external audit are acted upon promptly, ownership clearly assigned to senior management and progress reported through appropriate governance arrangements.
• Ensuring an effective, proportionate and risk based internal audit service with appropriate independence and direct access to members is in place, providing assurance with regard to governance, risk management, and internal control arrangements, and that recommendations are acted upon.
• Actively welcoming external challenge, reviews, and inspections from regulatory bodies and implementing recommendations.
• Actively welcoming external challenge, with recommendations from audit, inspection and review formally considered, tracked and implemented, and progress reported through appropriate governance and oversight arrangements.
• Gaining assurance on risks associated with delivering services through third parties and ensuring that this is evidenced in the annual governance statement.
• Ensuring that when working in partnership, arrangements for accountability are clear and the need for wider public accountability has been recognised and met.
• Applying transparency and accountability arrangements proportionately across collaborations, subsidiary companies, partnerships, franchised services and arm’s-length bodies and joint ventures, ensuring consistent standards of reporting, scrutiny and assurance.
• Systematically capturing learning arising from assurance activity, scrutiny, challenge and review, and using this to strengthen and support continuous improvement in governance, decision‑making and service delivery.
• Supporting accountability to the public and stakeholders through proportionate, clear, understandable assurance over core areas of activity, subsidiary companies, partnerships, franchised services and arm’s-length bodies and joint ventures, enabling effective scrutiny and ensuring transparency operates meaningfully in practice.

1. 10.1 We recognise the importance of good governance in maintaining and enhancing stakeholder confidence. Each year we publish an Annual Governance Statement (AGS) together with our Annual Accounts. This statement is prepared following an internal review of governance arrangements and outlines actions identified to strengthen them. From 2025/26, our Annual Governance Statement follows the CIPFA/SOLACE 2025 addendum and includes a forward look and a clear conclusion on fitness-for-purpose supported by multiple assurance sources.
2. 
   
3. 10.2 The review is informed by the work of:

• The Statutory Officers who have responsibility for the development and maintenance of the governance environment.
• The Internal Auditor’s annual report and opinion, and by comments made by the external auditors and other review agencies and inspectorates.
• The Chief Financial Officer who has statutory responsibility for ensuring the proper management of the financial affairs.

1. 10.3 The framework for evaluating the effectiveness of internal control includes:

• An evaluation of progress against previously identified governance issues.
• Reviews of:
  • External Audit’s Opinion
  • Annual Internal audit report and opinion
  • Risk Management Action Plans
  • Issues identified through business planning and performance management
  • Complaints
  • Freedom of Information requests
  • Data Protection and Information Governance issues
  • Corporate assurance mapping exercises
  • Accreditations or independent assessments against control frameworks
  • Outcomes from relevant stakeholder engagement exercise
  • The findings of external assessments, from external audit, inspectorates, other regulators, peer reviews and any other commissioned reviews

The AGS is discussed by the Audit, Standards and Risk Committee, examined by External Auditors and approved by the MCA Board.