Agenda item

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to the report was a list of proposals for improvement made in past reports, most of which had been completed or superseded by newer ones.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 WAO could offer such advice in future.

In welcoming the positive movements within the report and the Council’s response, Mr. P. Williams said that improving the robustness of the MTFP was a key priority in forward planning and that any actions should be specific on measuring outcomes to enable progress to be monitored.

The Chair sought a further response following Councillor Heesom’s comments on regeneration.  Mr. Lloyd Jones explained that WAO comments had been around measuring impact of projects and not what the Council was doing, as targets had been met.  He added that Flintshire was in a better position than most Councils across Wales in terms of headline figures, however research on inconsistencies across Wales, exemplified within the report, may influence actions going forward.

In response to queries from Councillor G.H. Bateman, the Chief Executive explained that a revised business plan had been submitted to the Welsh Government (WG) to achieve the Wales Quality Housing Standard (WQHS) by 2022, with an option to reduce this timescale to 2020 with WG approval for borrowing capacity.  Negotiations were ongoing between the UK Government and WG on an exit from the Housing Revenue Account Subsidy System (HRAS), with an outcome expected around the end of the month.

On the WAO suggestion for an accountable officer to take responsibility for the information asset and associated risks, the Democracy & Governance Manager said it had been agreed that the Head of Legal & Democratic Services would be the Council’s Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO).

Councillor G.S. Banks noted in the report that performance in primary schools remained lower than expected and questioned whether this was due to poor performance in a minority of cases.  Mr. Lloyd-Jones acknowledged this and said that based on the overall proportion of young people in all Flintshire primary schools, performance at Key Stage 2 level was considerably lower than expected, taking into account the demography.  The Chief Executive said that the Council was aware of these performance issues and gave assurance that these were being worked through under the strategy for school improvement and standards.  However, an important benchmark was to recognise that Flintshire was one of only a few Councils in Wales where schools were no longer under any form of Special Measures.  Intervention by Members and officers on improving performance in schools had been positively reflected in the Estyn inspection report.

Responding to a query raised by Councillor Bateman on the reporting of Improvement Priorities, Mr. Lloyd-Jones spoke of differing arrangements and levels of Member involvement in the business of Councils.  It was thought that including the names of Cabinet Members on Improvement Priorities progress reports would help them to take ownership of their portfolios.

Councillor Heesom noted WAO advice on Key Stage 4 outcomes and said that earlier results had been less assured.  He went on to speak of the importance of education, acknowledging the number of committed community schools in Flintshire.

On performance at Key Stage 2, Councillor I.B. Roberts referred to forthcoming changes to standardise the methods of assessment across Wales and the impact of a new system of tests by WG to be introduced the following year.  He welcomed the decision by Estyn to remove Flintshire from the follow-up monitoring category which coincided with four other Councils being entered into this.  He also commented on the good inspection by Estyn and said that the vast majority of primary schools in Flintshire were performing particularly well.

RESOLVED:

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