Agenda item

To consider a report by the Head of Business Improvement and Modernisation (copy attached) to inform Members 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.

 

The representative from the WAO, Gwilym Bury, confirmed this would be the final Annual report in its current format.  In the future there would be four shorter reports produced during the year as follows:

 

(i)              Financial resilience;

(ii)             Transformation arrangements;

(iii)            Governance arrangements and

(iv)           Corporate arrangements.

 

Overall, this had been a very positive report and no recommendations had been put forward, however, the report did highlight some areas of concern where it considered further work was required.  These were as follows:-

 

·       The arrangements around the safeguarding of vulnerable adults were not yet considered satisfactory by CSSIW.  The regulator also reported concerns about the way the quality of Domiciliary Care was monitored.  A number of steps had been taken to meet these concerns.

·       Attendance at Scrutiny meetings had declined, as had the attendance of Scrutiny Members at Service Challenge meetings.  The Council had taken steps to try to improve the situation. 

·       The Council should create a more formal approach to the use of alternative delivery models, so that value for money can be clearly identified.  It also proposes that the Council should strengthen its approach to income generation to improve consistency.  The Council has already developed a number of successful alternative delivery models.

·       Estyn’s evaluation of school performance.  Overall the evaluation was positive.  Performance of Denbighshire had improved slightly last year but had dipped slightly compared to other Councils.  The Lead Member for Education requested that funding be taken into account due to the fact that one Council in south Wales had received £4million whilst £800,000 funding had been granted to improve schools in the whole of North Wales.

 

Indepth discussion took place and the following issues were raised:

 

·       In recent years there had been an increasing number of people with learning difficulties and often complex needs from outside the county and even Wales who had been placed with independent providers in Denbighshire.  CSSIW found that there were a significant number of people in these services unlikely to be known to the Council, who may need at some point to access primary health and social care services, and the protection of the safeguarding processes operated by the Council.  Further work would be needed by the Council (and partners) to assess and predict future need and resource in this respect, and to take account of the potential impact of any step-down from intensive support and into community-based settings within the county.

·       Numbers of members attending Scrutiny meetings had been an issue but Denbighshire did have an effective Scrutiny and this was one of the reasons why Denbighshire were such a successful Local Authority.

·       Delivery of Services – Denbighshire had managed to provide the same services as 5-6 years ago but with significantly less funding.  Unfortunately this was not acknowledged within the report.

·       Denbighshire are an ambitious Council.  There were to be new schools across the county which would be of great advantage to pupils.

·       Monitoring arrangements were in place which were part of the Local Authority’s Protocol.

 

The Corporate Director: Communities clarified that the WAO Annual Improvement Report covered the financial year 14 months ago.  A summary of improvements which had taken place since 2014/15 had been available for information.  Processes had significantly improved and CSSIW had seen improvements take place at a speedy pace.

 

Denbighshire take very seriously, the out of county placements. There were protocols in place with both Welsh and English Local Authorities.  She stated that there was always room for improvement and Denbighshire were working closely with the providers.

 

The Chief Executive expressed his gratitude to the WAO representative for a positive report.  He confirmed that Denbighshire were responding to improve at every opportunity.  Alternative service delivery had been mentioned but this would be driven by financial constraints which would be discussed within the budget process.

 

The Chief Executive stated he was committed to better outcomes and in his opinion, school results were not as good as they had been 2-3 years previously.

 

The Chief Executive thanked the WAO representative, Gwilym Bury and his colleagues for all their work as they had attended a number of meetings.

 

The Chair asked for a show of hands to accept the report.   There was a unanimous acceptance of the report.

 

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