Agenda item

To consider a report by the Head of Business Improvement & Modernisation (copy enclosed) to provide information to Members of the Council’s Annual Improvement Report.

 

Gwilym Bury from the Wales Audit Office (WAO) introduced the 2013/14 Annual Improvement Report (previously circulated) together with a presentation to provide information to Members.

 

Under the Local Government Measure, the Wales Audit Office annually reviewed the Council’s progress towards meeting its objectives and its prospects for continuing to improve in the year ahead.

 

Overall, this had been a very positive report.  The report had highlighted areas where further improvements could be made but there were no further recommendations within the report.

 

Gwilym Bury clarified that the report was in three main sections:

 

·        Assessment of Council’s 2012/13 performance;

·        Council’s arrangements for self-evaluation of 2012-13 performance;

·        Council’s arrangements for 2013/14 improvement planning.

 

In-depth discussion took place and the following issues were raised:

 

·        The Council had helped many people from becoming homeless but its work to ensure access to affordable housing had been less effective.  Performance in the previous two years had not reached the targets set.  The percentage of affordable housing had been set by the county at 30% but the Planning Inspector reduced the amount to 10%.  However, the Planning Inspector had stated that if house prices increased by more than 10% from 2009, the Local Authority could request a higher percentage of new builds to be affordable housing;

·        All the Denbighshire housing stock now met with the Welsh Housing Quality Standard;

·        The condition of most “A” and “B” roads within Denbighshire had improved, but there had been little progress with “C” roads and 13.9% remained in a poor condition;

·        The Council continued to improve the wellbeing of its most vulnerable citizens.  CSSIW highlighted positive changes across both adult and children’s services, which had been extremely positive.  The one area of concern had been the service for Looked After Children.  Health assessments and dental checks were one of the lowest in Wales but this had been acknowledged as an area for improvement.

·        The Council worked effectively with its business partners to deliver initiatives that supported the local economy.  It also made progress in developing sustainable plans for funding future projects following the unsuccessful bid for Welsh Government funding from the Vibrant and Viable Places Fund to support initiatives within Rhyl.

·        Pupils performance in secondary schools in 2013 had been mixed.  At Key Stage 3, the proportion of 14 year old pupils achieving the core subject indicator, as measured by teacher assessment, had been below the Wales average in four of the previous five years.  The issue of Key Stage 3 Education was one which the Chief Executive and members requested it be known that they did not agree on.  It had been agreed, however, that further progress had been required in Key Stage 3.

·        The Council had worked effectively to keep Denbighshire’s environment attractive, but further work had been required to reduce incidents of fly-tipping and to improve resident satisfaction.  Positive moves had been taking place to improve these issues.

·        Efficiencies had been delivered in modernising services but there had been a lack of progress by the Corporate Human Resources service in meeting its key internal targets during 2012/2013.  Staff surveys indicated that morale amongst the Corporate HR Service was low.  A recent internal audit report indicated that progress was being made in addressing key areas for improvement.

·        The Council had taken steps to assess its provision in Welsh by means of a mystery shopper exercise.  The Council would need to invest more in Welsh language training and for it to be planned effectively.

 

For the year 2013/14 the WAO concluded that:

 

·        Denbighshire made good progress in delivering improvements in all its priority objectives for 2012/13 but further improvements were required in a few key areas;

·        The Council’s service challenge reviews and other measures to self-evaluate its performance were robust;

·        The Council’s planning for improvement and its arrangements to support improvement were good;

·        The Council was likely to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement for 2014/15.

 

The Leader, Councillor Hugh Evans, thanked the WAO representative for the report.  Thanks were also extended as the WAO representative had attended a majority of the Service Challenges and his advice had been extremely useful.

 

The Leader expressed concern regarding funding arrangements to Local Government and requested a response from the Auditor General regarding those arrangements, especially as the budget funding would have a massive impact on Local Government.

 

The WAO representative agreed to take the issue back to the Auditor General, as it would be a serious issue for a majority of Councils.

 

The Chief Executive thanked the WAO representative for the fair and balanced report.  Again, thanks were extended for the support of the WAO representatives to the Council.

 

RESOLVED that subject to the above, the Council noted and accepted the Annual Improvement Report by the Welsh Audit Office.