It was good to hear at yesterday's Cornwall Council Cabinet meeting of the very real progress being made in moving Cornwall Council towards being a top class council. This will benefit everyone in Cornwall, as quality services are delivered at lowest possible cost.
The details are that Cornwall Council has achieved the second best performance standards of all those councils who moved to unitary status in 2009. There was already clear evidence that performance standards across the Council have been improving however it is particularly gratifying to have independent confirmation of the progress made since the Conservatives, working alongside the Independents, took control of Cornwall Council in 2009.
The independent report was prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers who provide a benchmarking service to a number of Councils to allow performance to be compared.
This positive performance result sits alongside continued effective management of the Cornwall Council budget which is on track to deliver well over £50m of savings in the current financial year. These savings comprise the initial Cornwall Council target of £40m savings in 2010/2011 (which were needed to keep the council tax increase low) plus the subsequent additional savings required from the reduction in Government grants. Whilst the latest forecast is of a small overspend this primarily arises from the effect of the Government grants reduction and there is every expectation that the budget will be back in line before the financial year comes to a close.
Further savings arising from the rationalisation of Cornwall Council’s office property will be achieved by the adoption of modern working practices. This will reduce the number of offices which the Council needs to occupy. There will be some short-term costs, especially regarding refurbishments of offices in Dolceath Avenue, Camborne, and New County Hall, Truro to allow more staff to be based in these locations however overall the changes will achieve significant long-term savings.
Much remains to be done. The current performance improvements, whilst welcome, are not any reason to reduce the efforts to make further substantial improvements.
I posted a comment on 28 September on this subject which you appear to have removed. I entirely accept your right to remove comments but I am at a loss as to why you did so since I cannot see the comment was in any way offensive. As a member of the Audit Committee and Performance Management Panel of Cornwall Council you are in an ideal position to raise or answer the questions raised in the comment. So here it is again:
ReplyDeleteOn the face of it the PwC benchmarking report is good news. I do not understand though how this squares with the Interim Governance report from the Audit Commission presented to your Audit Committee yesterday. The findings on Value for Money were that the Council failed to achieve minimum standards for 4 out of 9 value for money criteria. The other counties that went unitary in 2009, Shropshire, Wiltshire, Northumberland and Durham all met the full 9 minimum standards (and incidentally all will manage to meet the 30 September deadline for approval of audited accounts).
On the Value for Money KLOE "Use of Information" the Audit Commission said: "The Council’s data quality arrangements were weak during 2009/10 and performance management and reporting systems were not fully in place across the whole of the organisation".
What reliance can therefore be placed on the data given to PwC when it conducted its benchmarking exercise? If the data is not reliable are PwC's comparisons accurate?
My apology for removing your post. It was not intentional but rather my lack of skill in using the blog's facility to remove spam comments, which yours clearly is not.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the difference in opinion arises primarily as the Audit Commission took a view for the entire financial year 2009/10 whereas PWC paid rather more attention to the rate of progress and current performance.
The Audit Commission judgements, to accord with their statutory duty, are an average for the year so whilst they accept that progress is being made are not able to reflect that in their opinions.
Having now seen the details of the PWC presentation I remain confident that (a) they have been objective in their comments, and (b) have not had their view clouded by inadequate or incorrect Cornwall Council data. A couple of supports for that line: the Fire and Rescue Service is now out of intervention and Children's Safeguarding is now, for the first time, regarded as 'Green' (in the Red, Amber, Green traffic light project reporting) by the Children's Improvement Board - each of these areas is led by an independent chair. Whilst I can't comment on the Fire side of matters I do meet the CIP Chair from time to time and given her background, and seen the way she holds individuals and organisations to account, do not believe that the 'wool is pulled over her eyes'.