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Audit Committee, 27 Feb 2007

27 Feb 2007 · S2 · Audit Committee

Item of business

Accounts Commission

Alastair MacNish (Accounts Commission): Watch on SPTV

With regard to the past four years, I must say that time flies when you are having fun. I thank the committee for the opportunity to present the 2006 overview report on local government in Scotland. The report is, in the main, a positive one. Financial stewardship remains sound across authorities, with council tax collection rates increasing in-year to 93.3 per cent, compared to 92.7 per cent in 2005—six years ago, in my first year with the Accounts Commission, it was in the 80s—and in real terms, the councils took in an additional £100 million in council tax, in-year. Although the councils obviously collected more than that eventually each year, there has been a dramatic improvement in in-year collection. For the first time, every council has a stated reserves policy, which is an issue that we have highlighted in the past few years. Waste recycling has increased from 17.6 per cent in 2005 to 24.7 per cent in 2006, with the amount of biodegradable waste that is sent to landfill sites coming close to the Executive's target for 2005-06. There has been progress with regard to the flexible use of home care services across most councils in Scotland, although the overall reduction in the number of elderly people receiving any home care needs careful monitoring.The report shows the most encouraging results in performance against statutory performance indicators since their inception. Despite the improvements, however, the essential performance management information that is available in each authority is far from robust, which is an issue that we have raised at this committee before. In that connection, the Accounts Commission welcomes the review that the Executive is undertaking—along with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, the Improvement Service, Audit Scotland and others—of management information that is required by authorities to accurately reflect their service performance.Financial pressures on councils are as severe as they have been for many years. That is, in the main, the result of equal pay settlements, the single status agreement, continuing pension-fund contribution increases and ever-increasing energy costs. It is, therefore, imperative that councils have in place proper risk assessment, detailed asset management arrangements and sound long-term financial planning.On best value and community planning, Audit Scotland has completed 18 of the 32 best-value audits of councils. What is most encouraging is that, in every case, councils are using the best-value process to try to improve the quality of service provision in their area. That includes the councils that have furthest to go in terms of achieving best value.On the other hand, community planning partnerships in many areas are not progressing as quickly as we would like. That is partially because of the bureaucracy in the process and partially because of the urgent need for greater commitment at the highest level in partner organisations. It is vital that those issues be resolved as soon as possible.Such reports are only of real value if they are used to look forward as well as to reflect on the year that is under review. The current report is no different. The imminent introduction of multimember wards, together with the retiral of many experienced elected members and senior officers throughout Scotland, underlines how vital it is to provide the necessary training for new members in May. We urge councils to set up the arrangements for that now, together with clear protocols for multimember ward issues, so that the progress that local government is currently making is not jeopardised.As I highlighted earlier, the financial pressures on authorities are significant, so it is essential that councils and their public-sector provider colleagues move the sharing of services to the top of the agenda. Sharing of services will progress only if it is treated primarily not as a cost-cutting exercise but as enabling the redirection of resources to front-line services within current spending guidelines.My colleagues and I are happy to try to answer questions.

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Audit Committee, 27 Feb 2007

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