LG 8 - Cyngor Sir Caerdydd
Cardiff Council’s Response to the Proposed Local Government (Wales) Measure (Saesneg yn unig)
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the proposals outlined in the Proposed Local Government (Wales) Measure and after considering its content at Corporate Management Board on 11th November would like to pick up on the issues and provide Cardiff Council’s position on them.
General Comments
The purpose of the Measure with regard to improving the links between well-being and community planning with service improvement is strongly supported. However, the two matters are still considered very much in isolation within the measure – i.e. that improvement planning appears to be focussed on the day-to-day service performance of only the three types of ‘Welsh improvement authorities’ (Councils, National Parks and Fire & Rescue) and that no efforts have been made to consider developing shared outcomes and shared performance frameworks with the other public services involved in delivering a Community Strategy. This will be particularly important in relation to the wider partners who will have a new ‘duty to collaborate’ yet will not have aligned performance regimes so are unlikely to prioritise those activities required to deliver the Community Strategy. This can be seen through the different directions being given to Health from WAG, and to the Police from the Home Office.
Improvement Planning
The measure appears to miss the opportunity to significantly overhaul the arrangements for improvement planning and reporting and address key weaknesses in the current arrangements. In particular, it misses the opportunity to delete the need for publication of an Improvement Plan by 31st October, reporting the performance achieved in the previous financial year and, subsequently, to publish a summary. The current arrangements have a number of shortcomings, and the measure fails to address them:
- The full plan is not a credible mechanism for informing the public – it is required to be at a level of detail which makes it inappropriate for this purpose – hence the need for a summary.
- The full plan has limited relevance to the local authority as it is reporting on performance already well known and understood through “in year” and “year end” monitoring and reporting arrangements.
- The full plan is published after performance data has been submitted to the Wales Data Unit and has been audited, and does not therefore serve as a reporting tool for specified performance indicators. At best it provides an account of the actions taken to review performance and deliver corporate objectives – but there is no strong argument for this to be published in October rather than March/April.
The measure sets out a need to publish a plan “as soon as practical after the start of the financial year”. Many authorities already publish some form of Corporate Business Plan at or around the start of each financial year, setting objectives and targets for the year or years ahead. In most instances these will give rise to a range of related plans at service level. Capturing the statutory reporting requirements currently discharged in October within such plans could remove the need for a formal October report. The October report could be replaced with the existing audit of performance information and the publication of a “summary” for public consumption. This could be augmented by a dialogue between the authority and its auditors around performance issues, feeding into the Joint Risk Assessment and the new (April) Plan.
Performance Indicators and Standards
In implementing this measure steps should be taken to ensure that the number of performance indicators required by the Assembly is proportionate, and the definitions of these remain constant over time to afford the possibility of credible trend data and to minimise the un-productive effort in Councils in ensuring that new definitions for indicators are understood and acted on.
There is also the opportunity to ensure some consistency in performance indicators between the different ‘Welsh Improvement Authorities’ and those where there is a duty to collaborate.
The question of Ministers setting “standards” requires careful attention. Earlier work to establish “minimum standards” for aspects of Council activity failed to deliver a way forward. If Ministers are minded to set standards other than “minimum standards”, we need to recognise that this in effect erodes the ability of Councils to determine their own priorities and set targets accordingly.
Community Planning
This part of the Measure largely enhances the statutory footing of large elements of the existing Community Strategy Guidance. The Duty to Cooperate, which was well trailed, is the major new element and in reality as we already enjoy a good working relationship with most of the named partners it should not really affect how we conduct business. Where the outstanding issue remains is more about how partners meaningfully
collaborate – i.e. around prioritising and delivering shared outcomes and building it into their business plans etc. Similarly, whist a duty on some partners could prove useful, we also need to ensure the other partners outside of the list – e.g. Probation Service, Housing Associations, voluntary sector, universities, private sector and importantly, WAG Departments, also take ownership of the Community Strategy and prioritise action to deliver the agreed commitments.
We support the recognition in paragraph 3.31 (page 9 of the Explanatory Memorandum) that local authorities should have a leadership role in the community planning process.
The approach to Community Planning set out could be strengthened by a requirement on all community planning partners to include specific action to deliver the community strategy within their own internal planning mechanisms. This would strengthen the link between the Community Strategy and the performance of individual partner agencies.
Collaboration
Local Authorities in Wales already collaborate extensively in the planning and delivery of services where there is a clear business case for doing so. Such collaboration comes about after careful exploration of the partners’ respective aspirations, strengths and weaknesses, and recognises that successful collaboration requires a sound relationship of trust. It is difficult to reconcile this experience with a proposal to enable Ministers to require specific collaborations where it is unlikely that the ground work for success would be in place.
Byron Davies
Chief Executive
Cardiff Council
