Code of Corporate Governance

This Code sets out Wrexham County Borough Council’s approach to achieving and maintaining good corporate governance. It follows guidance produced by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE), and also takes account of the Welsh Assembly Government’s ‘citizen-centred governance principles for Wales’.

Wrexham County Borough Council (the Council) is by nature, a complex organisation which affects the lives of all citizens in the area: As well as providing a diverse range of services, it also works with partner organisations who provide other public services. The Council’s aims and priorities reflect these responsibilities.

The Council sees Corporate Governance as doing the right things, in the right way, for the right people in a timely, inclusive, open, honest and accountable manner. It comprises the systems and processes, and also the culture and values, by which the Council is directed and controlled and how it accounts to and engages with its citizens.

Strong, transparent and responsive governance enables the Council to put citizens first by pursuing its aims and priorities effectively, and by underpinning them with appropriate mechanisms for managing performance and risk. In order to maintain citizens’ confidence, these mechanisms must be sound and be seen to be sound.

Governance Principles

The Council operates through a governance framework that brings together its legislative responsibilities and management processes with six core governance principles based on those developed by the Independent Commission on Good Governance in Public Services in 2004. These are:

  1. Focusing on the purpose of the authority and on outcomes for the community and creating and implementing a vision for the local area;
  2. Members and officers working together to achieve a common purpose with clearly defined functions and roles in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for citizens;
  3. Promoting values for the authority and demonstrating the values of good governance through upholding high standards of conduct and behaviour; 
  4. Taking informed and transparent decisions which are subject to effective scrutiny and managing risk in order to foster innovation;
  5. Developing the capacity and capability of members and officers to be effective; and
  6. Engaging with local people and other stakeholders to ensure robust public accountability.

The Council commits itself to each of these principles. The schedule shows how this will be achieved.

Code of Corporate Governance

The document is available to download in the following formats:

Code of Corporate Governance - MS Word format 177Kb

Code of Corporate Governance - PDF format 59Kb

Code of Corporate Governance - Plain Text format 386Kb

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