To be accompanied by a presentation from Mr S Barry from the Wales Audit Office.

The Chief Executive presented a report, in order to make an introduction on the Auditor’s General report, attached at Appendix 1 to the covering report.

He advised that this Corporate Assessment report was very positive and put the Council in a strong position compared to other councils in Wales. It had been commented on in a positive light by other neighbouring authorities. He added however, that there were areas within the report comprising the Appendix that could be improved upon in the future, and the Council were presently looking at ways to secure improvement in these areas.

Mr Barry, Wales Audit Office, referred Members to Appendix 1 and confirmed that the Wales Audit Office had since 2013 become involved in producing corporate assessments of local authorities, where in particular, issues such as good governance and performance being attained within local government were examined.

He advised that page 23 of the report highlighted the key messages and findings arising from the assessment, and he was pleased to inform Members that the Council was well placed to secure improvements that were required in the future, and that there were good systems and ways of working adopted within the Authority that could be built upon in the future. He was fairly confident of this, given that BCBC had a good track record and had shown both in the past and currently, that it had innovative ways of working. He also felt that BCBC were focusing on the right areas, and had plans in place or pending, to secure the further improvements that were required.

He concluded by stating that the Welsh Audit Office would do a follow-up assessment, in order to ensure that progress was being made against those areas within the report where it was considered that further progress could be made.

A Member referred to page 45 and paragraph 66 of the report, where it highlighted that the Authority could possibly be more proactive in its number of staff apprenticeships.

The Corporate Director Resources advised that the Corporate Management Board had been actively discussing just today its Workforce Strategy going forward in the future, and in line with this, how these fitted into key areas such as its Corporate Priorities, including succession planning. She advised that the Authority currently had 12 apprentice positions, and whilst it was looking to expand this number, it could only manoeuvre within existing budget and there was obviously financial restraints attached to the MTFS. She added that the Council were looking at initiatives such as the SEWSCAP framework for the 21^st Century School Programme, as well as looking at partnerships with other organisations to introduce apprenticeships, funded from the Council’s Capital Programme.

A Member referred to page 43 of the report and paragraph 58 where SOCITM had assessed the Council’s website in 2014 as 1 star out of a possible maximum of 4 stars, and she asked if any improvement had been made since the carrying out of this assessment.

The Corporate Director Resources explained that this assessment was undertaken annually, and whilst she thought that this rating had not yet been improved upon in 2015-16, she expected the website to be considerably  improved as part of the Council’s Transformation Programme by the end of 2016-17.

A Member considered that the Authority should look to better develop key areas such as those relating to Human Resources (HR) and ICT to ensure ‘best practice’ is achieved in these areas, as they provided some of the more key functions of the Council, particularly in readiness for Local Government Reorganisation.

The representative from the Wales Audit Office confirmed that a considerable number of welsh local authorities were not performing to full capacity in these work areas, largely due to local government cuts which had resulted in reduced workforces. These were also fairly specialist areas, and therefore, there was also a problem with recruitment and retention of employees in HR and ICT, which compounded the problem.

A Member noted from page 23 of the report, that though the Local Service Board (LSB) had been in-being since 2009, there was scope for more progress to be made by this Board in terms of it’s development.

The Chief Executive confirmed that steps were in place to form a Public Service Board, where development plans in respect of further utilising the LSB would be examined and subsequently progressed. He added that both the LSB and the PSB had broad and long term ambitions, and that within the longer term future, further work would be progressed and evidenced by these bodies. The representative from the Wales Audit Office added that they would work with the Council to develop the role of collaborations such as the LSB, and to evaluate its future achievements and outcomes.

RESOLVED:           That Council noted the Corporate Assessment Report produced by the Wales Audit Office.