Committee
Audit Committee, 27 Feb 2007
27 Feb 2007 · S2 · Audit Committee
Item of business
Accounts Commission
Caroline Gardner:
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You are right that the report provides the picture across Scotland. One of the things that we find in councils that are doing well in respect of both best value and community planning is that they have a handle on demographic changes in their areas, whether the change is in the number of schoolchildren coming through or in the number of older people who will require services. We have not yet examined closely how well that links to national priorities and what the Executive is trying to achieve, or what it means for funding. I suspect that that will start to work its way through the system over the next two or three years.There is a lot of discussion about local outcome agreements or area outcome agreements that might help to match local and national priorities. That would be a good way of driving out the differences that can differentiate an authority from the across-Scotland picture.
In the same item of business
The Convener:
Ind
I welcome the public and members of the media to the fourth meeting in 2007 of the Audit Committee. I also welcome the witnesses who are with us for item 5, ...
Alastair MacNish (Accounts Commission):
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 overvie...
Margaret Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab):
Lab
The report does not say whether you consider sickness absences that have resulted from people sustaining injuries at work. We hear anecdotal evidence about t...
Caroline Gardner (Audit Scotland):
The statutory performance indicators do not break down the sickness absence rates by reason for sickness; they break them down by the big operational groups—...
Margaret Jamieson:
Lab
There is a correlation between people being off sick and the information that is provided on assaults on teaching staff, to use teachers as an example. It wo...
Alastair MacNish:
We are not far down that road in terms of the efficient government initiative's success to date. It needs to be managed carefully. When we examine in more de...
Margaret Jamieson:
Lab
So, the situation it is not quite as rigid as it is made out to be.
Alastair MacNish:
Many issues are involved. It is not a case of saying that there is a saving to be made so something should be taken away; one has to consider the full pictur...
Margaret Smith (Edinburgh West) (LD):
LD
I am interested in your comments about the upcoming council elections. You say that they "represent a significant challenge". I think that we would all agree...
Alastair MacNish:
In the main, the conclusion stems from the best-value audits. Over the past few years, there has been concern about the lack of real scrutiny of policy in co...
Margaret Smith:
LD
I presume that you have had discussions with COSLA about that. Your point about scrutiny is fundamental. If you are considering drawing up protocols for mult...
Alastair MacNish:
Yes—there are various examples throughout the world of protocols being put in place for such situations. The danger is that the issue will fly under the rada...
Caroline Gardner:
The Improvement Service is doing a lot of work on, for example, the training that new members will need, the support that members in multimember wards might ...
Alastair MacNish:
We could also learn from the mistakes that were made with list MSPs when the Parliament came into being. Speaking from the local authority side, I can say th...
Margaret Smith:
LD
I echo that point. Having been a member of a local authority as well as a member of Parliament, I would go for the training and support that I got when I ent...
The Convener:
Ind
I would like to clarify that it is generally known that there will be a change in the councillors who will take post after 3 May, because of the new form of ...
Alastair MacNish:
It is a strange situation because, as you might remember, about a year ago word was going round that 12 to 16 chief executives would leave the service. That ...
The Convener:
Ind
Do we know whether that is happening because of the drive for more efficient government or because of packages that make it more attractive for people to lea...
Alastair MacNish:
I think that people are leaving for the same reason that I stepped down in 1999: they feel that someone else can do a better job. I felt that my time was up....
The Convener:
Ind
You have raised a useful issue; I hope that the rest of Parliament is also aware of it.
Mrs Mary Mulligan (Linlithgow) (Lab):
Lab
I will raise two issues. The first is how councils respond to the demands that are placed on them by changing populations. Exhibit 6 in your report shows the...
Alastair MacNish:
I believe that that is a real issue. One of the few problems with a national report is that it paints the overall picture; therefore, the report paints an ov...
Caroline Gardner:
You are right that the report provides the picture across Scotland. One of the things that we find in councils that are doing well in respect of both best va...
Mrs Mulligan:
Lab
I hope that the committee will forgive me if I use a local example. Where there are increasing numbers of pupils while we are looking to reduce class sizes i...
David Pia (Audit Scotland):
An issue that we have become increasingly aware of—some local authorities have brought it to our attention—is that there is some uncertainty about demographi...
Mrs Mulligan:
Lab
The second issue that I want to highlight is recycling. We are all tremendously impressed by and welcome the improvements that have been made. However, it ha...
Alastair MacNish:
The Executive and local authorities should be congratulated on the increase in recycling—there was a significant injection of funding to the local authoritie...
Caroline Gardner:
We are in the final stages of a study on waste management. David Pia is better informed than I am about what is coming out of that.
David Pia:
We are examining the progress of the area waste plans, which are produced by 11 groupings of local authorities in Scotland. Without pre-empting the study's c...
Mrs Mulligan:
Lab
I look forward to publication of that study.