Issue - meetings

That the report be noted.        

The Chief Executive introduced Karen Lees from the Wales Audit Office (WAO) to the meeting.  He explained that the report had been approved by Cabinet and noted by the Audit Committee at its recent meeting.   

Ms. Lees introduced the report to advise the Committee of the Council’s Improvement Assessment Letter 2013 from the Auditor General for Wales.  She explained that the assessment had been undertaken to establish whether the Council was working effectively and efficiently. 

Ms. Lees provided a detailed presentation on the report and highlighted the following areas:-

• the Council had discharged its improvement planning duties under the Local Government Measure but it should ensure that it acted more in accordance with Welsh Government Guidance. 
• the 10 priorities which represented the Council’s Improvement Objectives complied with at least one of the seven ‘aspects of improvement’ described in the measure. 
• the presentation of the plan could be improved to achieve the delivery of two functions to provide an internal management tool and an external facing document for the public 
• the Council acknowledged that, in any particular year some of its Improvement Objectives would receive greater attention and priority than others so that its focus in a single year was more sharply defined to encourage citizens to engage more fully with the Council’s planning and performance. 
• The Annual Performance Report complied with the measure but it was reported the Council should ensure that it acted more in accordance with Welsh Government Guidance. 
• The report was published on time and included an explanation of how its content contributed to the Council’s statutory duty to ‘make arrangements to secure continuous improvement and account for it’. 
• Flintshire’s performance in 2011-12 was better than the national average in over two-thirds of the statutory and non-statutory national indicators. 
• The report included a clear overall assessment, using a ‘Red, Amber, Green’ (RAG) colour coding, of how well the Council considered that it performed during 2011-12 against each of its 10 Improvement Objectives. 
• it was a long and detailed document and although it was clearly written on the whole, it did not enable the reader to grasp readily a succinct evaluation of what the Council intended to achieve during the year, the resulting benefits to the public and what needed to be improved in the future. 
• Social Services and Education had produced mature service-specific analyses of their performance, but this maturity was not fully replicated in the Council’s Annual Performance Report.
• the Council’s on-going review of its governance arrangements was wide-ranging and well-evidenced and the accuracy of the Council’s performance data had improved but there remained scope to improve the use of data in the Council’s self-evaluation.

In conclusion, Ms. Lees said that there were no formal recommendations in the letter but four proposals for improvement had been suggested. 

Councillor A.P. Shotton, the Leader of the Council, reiterated the comments made at the Cabinet meeting and welcomed the comments made by the WAO in the Assessment Letter.  He emphasised the importance of taking the comments on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 83