Podcast transcript

I’m Leon Thompson and I’m joined today by Martin Walker, Best Value audit manager at Audit Scotland. We’re going to be discussing the Best Value report on the Western Isles.

So what has this report found?

Well the council hasn’t really made enough progress on delivering continuous improvement in a number of key areas. This makes it difficult for the council to deliver effectively for the people of the Western Isles.

I see, so what are the weaknesses and where are the council’s strengths?

As far as the weaknesses are concerned, it’s essentially around the ‘building blocks’, the foundations for Best Value. So there are things like performance management systems, policy-led budgeting, the council’s consultation arrangements, some of the council’s corporate management and coordination activities and some parts of its partnership working that really aren’t helping it to improve services for the people of the Western Isles.

As far as the positives are concerned though, they do have some strong things that they can build on. They have strong community engagement – and that includes people within communities doing things for themselves as well as just being consulted on things. They’ve got active and committed leadership from elected members. They’ve also got effective financial stewardship arrangements and a good approach to strategic capital planning.

They have a clear vision for the Western Isles, and that’s reflected in the plans and strategies that they have.

The report concludes that there is a mixed picture of service delivery. What’s working well and what isn’t?

The first point to make on this is that, given the limitations with the performance management arrangements at the moment, it makes it fairly difficult for the council to get a good view of how its services are actually performing. That also means of course that it’s a wee bit difficult for us as well to make the same sort of assessment.

Where the information is available, what’s clear to us is that it is quite a mixed picture of service performance.

For example in education, exam results – that’s children’s attainment results - are pretty good. What still needs to get sorted in this area though is the improvement to school buildings.

Similarly, in social work the performance of the residential and homecare part of the service again looks pretty good. But there are a couple of other areas within the social care department where things really need to improve. 

In housing, the housing standards have improved and the amount of fuel poverty has decreased. Having said that, the council still needs to improve its performance on collecting rent arrears.

Are there other positives?

Certainly. The council’s economic development area works well, and particularly works well in partnership with Western Isles Enterprise.

And also on transport there have been great improvements over the last three decades. There have been improvements to roads, bridges, causeways, the coordination of local transport and to the travel information that’s available to customers.

So what’s not so good?

Well the recycling rates haven’t been great, although there are some new facilities coming onstream that might help with that.

The speed with which the council is able to deal with new planning applications could also improve - although the windfarm applications have had an impact on that. 

Similarly in sports and leisure where the attendance is below the national average - although again here there are some new facilities that provide an opportunity to improve performance in this area.

And what happens next?

The council’s chief executive was already in the process of reviewing the council’s arrangements - so of course that is welcomed. The council will then send an improvement plan to the Accounts Commission. And some of the Commission members will go up and visit the council at some point over the course of the next couple of months. That’s part of the normal process following the publication of the Best Value audit reports.

Martin, thank you very much.