Council making "good progress" but yet to make lawful decision on allowances: WAO

Caerphilly County Borough Council has made “good progress” in addressing most of the recommendations made by the Wales Audit Office in a special inspection report and two reports in the public interest.

But the WAO said the council still needed to take a lawful decision on the annual leave and essential car user allowances and to further improve other areas, particularly scrutiny.

The sequence of events – set out in this latest report – were:

• In March 2013 the Appointed Auditor issued a report in the public interest highlighting failures in governance arrangements and inadequacies in the processes followed by Caerphilly to set the pay of chief officers.
• In September 2013 the Auditor General published an annual improvement report which highlighted wider governance issues.
• During October and November 2013 the Auditor General undertook a special inspection into the council’s corporate governance arrangements. This followed up the findings from the two earlier reports.
• In December 2013 a second report in the public interest on the Chief Officer Essential Car User and Annual Leave Allowances was published.
• The WAO published in January 2014 its report on the special inspection. This concluded that “a combination of a number of weaknesses inevitably led to governance failings at the council and whilst it was making encouraging progress in improving its governance arrangements, it was too early to conclude whether these improvements could be sustained”.

In the special inspection report, the Auditor General made eight recommendations. These included a call for the council to clarify “In an easily understandable way” the governance and decision-making roles of: the Cabinet; chief executive; Corporate Management team; corporate directors; scrutiny committees; and the Audit Committee.

The follow-up report, which can be viewed here, said Caerphilly had addressed the majority of the WAO’s recommendations.

However, it called on the council to address the lack of a lawful decision on annual leave and essential car user allowances “as soon as possible”.

The watchdog also suggested that further work was needed to more fully address areas such as internal audit, scrutiny, self-evaluation, and to develop an HR strategy and workforce planning.

In response Cllr Keith Reynolds, Caerphilly's Leader, said, “We welcome the positive feedback from the Wales Audit Office and their acknowledgement that clear improvements continue to be made.
 
"Much work has been done over the past 12 months to deliver these improvements, but we also recognise that there are still a few issues that still need to be resolved. We will now focus our attention on addressing these outstanding recommendations as a matter of urgency."

Cllr Reynolds added: "Residents will be reassured to hear that Caerphilly Council is on a steady path of improvement and we remain committed to delivering high quality services to all sections of our community.”