Issue - meetings

That the Wales Audit Office Annual Improvement Report and the Council’s response be noted.

The Chief Executive congratulated the Chair and Vice-Chair on their appointments and thanked Mr Paul Williams for his contribution as the former Vice-Chair.  He introduced the Council’s Annual Improvement Report 2012 published by the Auditor General for Wales and the Council’s response, which had been approved by Cabinet and was presented to the Audit Committee for it to assure the response as appropriate and proportionate.

Mr. Huw Lloyd-Jones of the Wales Audit Office (WAO) said that this was the most encouraging of the three Annual Improvement Reports for Flintshire to date under the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 and confirmed that there were no new formal recommendations or proposals for improvement.  He summarised the work undertaken by WAO and other regulatory bodies in respect of the Council’s performance in, and evaluation of, 2011/12 and work planning for 2012/13.  Appended to the report was a list of proposals for improvement made in past reports, most of which had been completed or superseded by newer ones.

The Chief Executive summarised the Council’s response and said that the WAO report was a fair capture of issues which reflected Flintshire in a good position.  He said it was important to note that no new statutory recommendations had been made and that significant progress had been made with previous ones.  Significant work had been done on the Housing Business Plan and on performance management and reporting systems, work was progressing on the final draft of the Improvement Plan which was based on a ‘sharper’ set of Council Priorities to be shared with Members later in the week.  WAO work on governance had provided reassurance on the strength of the Council’s arrangements.  The updated Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) would also be shared with Members in a report to Cabinet later in the week to be followed up by a further revision in October 2013.

Councillor P.G. Heesom welcomed the approach taken by the new administration in moving forward on Flintshire Futures but felt that more could be done on economic development due to Members’ concerns at the lack of co-ordination between Town Centre Masterplans.

Mr. Lloyd-Jones did not comment on the concerns about economic development but said that a joined-up approach with other areas including Cheshire and Merseyside would be required.  On Flintshire Futures, he said that some projects were ambitious and that further work was needed on clear definition of benefits to feed into forward planning, however savings from some of the longer term projects would only be realised if relevant decisions were taken early enough.  The Chief Executive said that significant progress had been made on Flintshire Futures with a further phase of work due to begin over the summer.

Councillor Heesom commented on the availability of the Euro funding stream and said that Members were unclear on whether particular projects had benefited.  Mr. Lloyd-Jones and Mr. J. Herniman replied that this had not been included in the scope of the WAO performance audit.  Councillor Heesom felt it would be helpful if  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5