Inverclyde Council: the audit of Best Value and community planning: progress report – podcast transcript

Leon:  Hello, I’m Leon Thomson and I’m joined today by Martin Walker, Portfolio Manager at Audit Scotland and he’s here to answer some questions on the latest report looking at progress at Inverclyde Council.  So Martin, briefly, what’s the background to this report?

Martin:  In June 2005 the first Best Value audit report on Inverclyde Council was published. This was a critical report and the Commission found that the council was not in a position to deliver Best Value. In particular the Commission expressed concerns about leadership and decision making about the strategic management and also the competitiveness of some of the services and also their ability to demonstrate value for money. Since then the Commission has considered two progress reports and at the meeting in June 2006 it commissioned this report which provides a progress report on the council as at the end of 2006.  

Leon:  OK, so what are the main findings in this report?

Martin:  The council’s moving in the right direction and there’s a clear enthusiasm to improve.  It’s still got a long way to go but it’s putting the foundations in place that’ll help it secure the improvements that it needs.

Leon:  Where is the council making most progress and where is it making least?

Martin:  Since the first audit report the council’s appointed a new chief executive, has established a new management structure and appointed what effectively amounts to a new management team. They’ve established new political management arrangements, there’s been an improvement in the working relationships between elected members and officers and they’ve also used external support to help it improve and it’s also starting to build its own capacity within the organisation to support improvement. The council now needs to build on the improvement it’s made and increase the pace of change. So this will include developing and implementing a performance management framework, improving the competitiveness of its trading operations and also improving its corporate planning and budgeting.  As far as the services are concerned we found that most of the services are largely as they were in 2005. This means the ones that were performing well continue to perform well – education and social work certainly fall into that category but also the ones that were not performing so well most notably housing services still have a long way to go.  

Leon: And finally, what happens next?

Martin:  The council will be monitored on a on-going basis by the local audit team as happens in all councils and the Accounts Commission will take a further progress report in the summer of 2008.

Leon: Thank-you very much Martin.