Agenda item

To consider a report by the Strategic Planning & Performance Officer (copy attached) to inform Council of the WAO’s conclusion and improvement proposals, and to secure Council endorsement of a response to the Report.

The Lead Member for Finance and Assets, Councillor Julian Thompson-Hill, introduced the Wales Audit Office (WAO) Annual Improvement Report (previously circulated) to inform Council of the WAO’s conclusion and improvement proposals, and to secure Council endorsement of a response to the Report.

Under the Local Government Measure, the Wales Audit Officer 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 highlighted two areas of improvements but there were no further recommendations within the report.  The two areas of improvement proposed were as follows:

(a)  Ensure that roles and responsibilities are clear for the achievement of the new affordable housing objective.

(b)  Review its working practices against the recommendations in the Auditor General’s 2014-2015 Local Government National Reports, and implement improvements as necessary.  Local Government National Reports covered areas such as Scrutiny, young people classed as NEET, and Environmental Health Services.

The representative from the WAO, Gwilym Bury, confirmed that no recommendations had been put forward in the report with only two Improvement Proposals. 

Findings were that:

·       the use of performance standards continued to promote a consistent culture of ambition across the Council’s services

·       overall, the performance of the social care department was strong but the introduction of new models of working for both children’s and adult services would need rigorous evaluation throughout the forthcoming year

·       limited progress had been made in addressing the underperformance in the provision of affordable housing, but the Council had helped prevent many people from becoming homeless

·       the Council had improved the performance of its Human Resource service

·       the progress of initiatives to support the Denbighshire economy had been inconsistent, but improved arrangements were likely to support the Council’s ambitions

·       The Council had made good progress in committing its Discretionary Housing Payments and improvements in monitoring since April 2015 would assist clarification of their impact

·       Further progress had been made to improve the Welsh language capability of Council staff.

The Council had good financial management arrangements with no immediate shortcomings.  Also, the Council’s risk management arrangements were robust and fit for purpose and produced well informed balanced evaluations of its performance.

Indepth discussion took place and the following issues were raised:

·       Councillor Meirick Lloyd Davies requested a copy of the Annual Improvement Report 2014/15 in Welsh and this was provided with apologies that it had not been published with the Council report pack.

·       A number of members raised the issue of Affordable Housing.  Gwilym Bury of the WAO explained that housing prices within Denbighshire had not increased by 10% to enable the affordable housing number to be revisited. The number of new builds within the county had been low compared to the remainder of Wales.  Therefore, it would be challenging for the future but there would be a potential for Housing Associations to build more homes and for the Local Authority to take advantage of the housing reform subsidy.

·       The process of bringing empty houses back into use had not been included within the Affordable Housing figures.  Even though Denbighshire had worked well on the project the affordable housing figures only incorporated new builds

·       Improvement proposal of young people not in education, employment for training (NEETs) had been queried by Councillors.  It was clarified that the proposal had been given to all Local Authorities for improvement.   There would be a formal structure for response to the improvement proposals.  An exercise had also taken place to assess previous reports and to gather information from service challenges.  The Lead Member for Education clarified that Ann Jones A.M. would be sending a response regarding the issue

·       The Leader, Councillor Hugh Evans, expressed his gratitude to the WAO representative for a positive report.  Even though Denbighshire were seen to be a high performing Council, it had been stressed that they should not become complacent.  It would prove difficult within the current climate but expectation from the Welsh Government and the WAO would be the same with less resources.  It was requested that this be taken into consideration in the future. 

Proposed by Councillor Julian Thompson-Hill, seconded by Councillor Barbara Smith.

Vote took place by a show of hands – unanimously in favour of recommendation.

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