Report Summary
This report provides members of the Scottish Police Authority with an overview of the proposed amendments to the Police Scotland Scheme of Financial Delegation and to approve the proposed changes.
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Meeting
The publication discussed was referenced in the meeting below
Meeting of the Scottish Police Authority - 24 August 2023
Date : 24 August 2023
Location : COSLA, Edinburgh
Further Detail
RECOMMENDED CHANGES
This paper summarises the proposed changes to the PS internal authority levels and approval routes. The changes are restricted to the Committee Approval Matrix (detailed at point 2.3) and the Capital and Reform Authorisation Framework (detailed at point 2.4).
Recommendations
Recommendation 1 - Delegation from CFO to HoF - We recommend delegating a number of approvals and recommendations from the CFO to the HoF to streamline administrative processes, facilitate the day-to-day operations and simplify governance arrangements ensuring those are proportionate and value adding and reaping the benefits of the HoF role. See highlighted changes at 2.3 and 2.4.
Recommendation 2 - We recommend that PS SFD governance route to be shortened to SPA AO approval going forward, without the requirement for SPA RC recommendation to the Authority for approval. See highlighted changes at 2.3.
The current requirement for Authority approval seems disproportionate. At the same time the requirement for SPA oversight over a key financial control should be considered. We propose to change the Authority approval to SPA AO Approval. The SPA AO will be informed, thus retaining an oversight, and can choose to take changes further to SPA RC or the Authority for approval if required or deemed necessary.
The SPA AO can ensure that changes proposed by PS to the PS SFD do not override or circumvent the SPA Governance Framework and retains the ability to ensure no novel, contentious or repercussive changes are approved without their support and the necessary Scottish Government Approval.
The delegation from the CFO to the HoF proposal covers changes that are internal to PS, but as per the current PS SFD, and before the additional change proposed to the PS SFD governance route is approved, any changes to the scheme require further approval from SPA RC and the Authority.
Recommendation 3 – We recommend that we update the budget approval route to recognise in the SFD that the Strategic Leadership Board (SLB) recommends the annual budget. This is actually happening in practice but is not formally documented in this way. Therefore, we propose to rectify this as part of the changes proposed. This was raised in Internal Audits review of Governance therefore this will close this audit point. See highlighted changes at 2.3.
TABLE
