The Chief Executive submitted a report, the purpose of which, was to present the Council’s Annual Report 2019-20 (at Appendix A) for Council to consider and approve.

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change stated that, in accordance with the Shared Purpose Shared Future statutory guidance (SPSF: 2) for the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, individual public bodies must annually review the progress of their well-being objectives and publish a report to assess the extent to which these objectives contribute to the 7 wellbeing goals in accordance with the sustainable development principal.

Under section 15 of the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2009 and in accordance with the related statutory guidance issued by the Welsh Government, the authority must also publish its assessment of performance for the previous financial year before 31 October.

II She explained, that in March 2019, the Council published its Corporate Plan 2018-22, revised 2019-20. The Plan sets out its vision, which is, always to act as ‘One Council working together to improve lives’, and its three well-being objectives. The Plan also reiterates the well-being objectives for 2019-20.

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change, stated that the Plan defined 41 commitments to deliver the three well-being objectives and set out 56 outcome focused indicators to measure the progress for the financial year.

Overall, the Council performed very well in 2019-20, she advised. Of the 41 commitments 34 (82.9%) were completed successfully with 3 (7.3%) achieving most of their milestones and 4 (9.8%) missing most of their milestones. There were justifiable reasons why some targets were missed.

Of the 56 indicators identified for the Corporate Plan, 52 can be compared against their target:  35 (67.3%) met their target, 9 (17.3%) were off target by less than 10% and 8 (15.4%) missed the target by more than 10%.  Detailed information about the Council’s performance was included in Appendix A to the report.  

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change, explained further, that due to Covid-19, Welsh Government confirmed that there would be no data collection of Public Accountability Measures (PAMs) for 2019-20 therefore no analysis has been undertaken in relation to these indicators.

A summary of funding and financial performance for the year, regulators’ findings and themes that underpin the Council’s work were also set out in the report, which due to the pandemic had looked forward as well as back, something which had not been custom and practice for the Annual Report, in the past.

A Member referred to page 11 of the Annual Report and the Aim to create successful town centres. He noted the number of visitors to the town centre of Bridgend in terms of its target of 7.2m for 2019/20 had not been achieved and by quite some margin. He further noted whereby, that the footfall in Porthcawl town had actually increased from 2018/19. He asked for some clarification why this was the case, particularly given that GFK had increased in all areas of the UK.

The Leader and the Chief Executive in turn, advised that they would look at the relevant data outside of the meeting and update the Member accordingly with the reasons for this.

RESOLVED:                      That Council approved the Annual Report 2019-20 (at Appendix A to the report).