INSUFFICIENT financial resilience remains one of the top corporate risks at Clackmannanshire Council, elected members will be told tomorrow.

The risk that the local authority does not have a balanced budget to meet essential service demands, customer needs, or external agendas, remains severe in both likelihood and impact.

And the Audit Committee, which is set to meet virtually on Thursday February 4 to review the council's Corporate Risk Log, will also hear that coronavirus has further complicated the challenges faced by council officers.

Documents to be tabled said: “The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the council’s services and on the local community has been profound.

“The council had previously identified a public health emergency on its risk register but this had been in the context of a winter flu type of event.

“In a year of unparalleled uncertainty and challenge, the management of risk has never been more important.”

Turning to the risk that the council does not have enough money to meet demands, Kilncraigs papers said: “The cumulative funding gap to 2023 has been reduced from £20.5m to £14.5m as reported to council in December 2020.

“Although this has reduced, there is a continuing need for service redesign to ensure service delivery.

“Given the significant savings already achieved, as well as impacts and costs relating to Covid, and challenges around national budget uncertainty, it is extremely challenging to identify new proposals.

“Significant priority is being given to progressing the council’s organisational redesign and transformational change.”

Indeed, the organisational redesign, which seeks to address the council's funding gap, remains another key risk, should its pace or scale become insufficient.

Council documents to be tabled at the meeting said: “There are still significant risks associated with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the council's ability to balance the need to continue to provide core service with the ability to resource transformation projects.

“Significant work has been undertaken since the summer to review the Transformation Programme, resulting in seven key priorities being identified.

“Further work is still required to prioritise the projects that sit within each priority.

“Key posts will soon be recruited into, including a strategic director (transformation) and project managers and business analysts within the council's PMO will increase the capacity dedicated to the Transformation Programme.”

Altogether since the last review of the corporate risk log, three risks have increased at the council, 12 remain the same and one has reduced.

Councillors on the Audit Committee will tomorrow have the chance to scrutinise the log, ask questions and make comments.