Orkney Islands Council Best Value report podcast transcript

Fiona: I’m Fiona Deans and I’m here to speak to Carol Brown about our Best Value report into Orkney Islands Council.  Carol, briefly, how’s the council doing?

Carol:  We think the council’s doing well in providing services to local people and are maintaining a strong focus on maintaining the survival of fragile communities.  When the audit team visited the islands one thing we were struck by was the sheer logistical challenges of getting from one place to another once you leave the mainland and the distances are such that often air-travel is the only feasible way of making your journey to and from the mainland in the same day.  This was one of the things that brought home to us just how well the council does in providing a generally good standard of service to each of its communities.

Fiona: So what’s it best at?

Carol:  We feel the council has been innovative in the way it’s engaged with partners such as community councils in delivering services to its remoter areas.  It also does very well in education and this is reflected in both exam results and in recent inspection reports by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education.  The council also does well in some aspects of its social work services and its approach to its strategic housing management which is obviously very important in ensuring its remote communities remain sustainable.  

Fiona: So what needs to improve?

Carol:  The audit found that the main improvement areas concern the processes that the council needs to demonstrate that it’s achieving Best Value, in other words that its services are getting better over time.  The council needs a much more corporate approach to performance management to monitor and drive continuous improvement and service delivery.  Benchmarking with a wider range of councils would also help the council in judging how well it’s doing.  We also found that it could do better in managing its resources such as buildings and people more strategically and that would make sure it gets the most value out of the investment it has in these areas.

Fiona:  You say in the report that the leadership is good, but how can that be if many of the processes to support Best Value aren’t in place yet? 

Carol:  We found that the council’s leadership at both political and managerial levels was very effective in ensuring the council remained focussed on its strategic priorities.  These mainly revolved around ensuring the continued survival of the islands and maintaining a good quality of life for the residents.  Where leadership needed to improve its focus was around making sure that basic processes to support continuous improvement were in place and were seen to be driven from the top.  The council recognised this and was very open with us during the audit. They already have plans in place to address the issues that we identified and we are confident that they have the commitment to deliver these improvements.

Fiona: So what happens next?

Carol:  The next steps are that the council will agree a detailed improvement plan with the Accounts Commission. Following this the local auditor will then monitor this to make sure the council implements the plan effectively.

Fiona: Thanks Carol.