Information Bulletin
30 March 2005
Financial Sustainability Key to Best Value
Sandy Cluness, Convenor, has responded to today’s publication of the Best Value Audit Report on Shetland Islands Council;
He said;
“The Councils overriding commitment is providing the best possible services to the public, understanding how we might do that better is always welcomed. The report again confirms that the level of services we provide in Shetland are of a very high standard, but as we know and have been grappling with over the past few years, these are expensive to sustain.
The report comments on what the auditors perceive as a lack of corporate leadership from Councillors in Shetland with narrow ward interests overriding corporate and best value review decision making. Although we recognise this to a certain extent, this is the very basis of our local system of government. Consensus decision-making has been preferred to party politics here for many years, that has stood us in good stead and we remain confident that this can also deliver best value.
It was clear from the substantial self-assessment exercise we carried out and published in summer 2004 that there were areas where the Councils business could be organised more systematically, and targeting and monitoring improved. The work by Audit Scotland in the autumn of last year and the publication of this report has helped give us further valuable insight into some of these issues. Its findings largely reinforce our views on the need for many of the actions and changes we have already introduced. It also confirms the need for more concentrated effort in this area in the coming weeks and months.”
He also observed that;
“The biggest challenge for us is at the core of the audit findings, the need to define key priorities and agree with the people of Shetland the levels of services to be sustained, then set and achieve a balanced budget to meet these. These are not easy issues to deal with and will require a full and frank ongoing debate, both within and without the Council, to reach the right decisions for Shetland.”
Morgan Goodlad, Chief Executive commented, “The Auditors report is not a surprise to us and is in line with our own self assessments. In many of the areas highlighted it is encouraging that there is recognition that good progress is underway, however we welcome additional external pressure and scrutiny to make further improvements".
He went on to say
“We are confident that we have the people and skills to continue to tackle this challenge constructively and use it as an opportunity to develop the management systems identified by the auditors thus become more efficient at delivering the services that we provide. Our self-assessment and the audit itself confirmed that the Council provides high quality services. It also found that the people of Shetland generally have satisfaction levels with those services far above national averages. We are also reassured that the organisation is structured properly to deliver the improvement needed. Much activity in the preceding years has resulted in the right people in the right places to deliver quality services, we need to keep empowering them better to do that”
Mr Cluness concluded by saying
“The Auditors acknowledged we had unique circumstances in Shetland, we want future reviews to complement the quality and effectiveness of our unique solutions. All of the Council’s leadership and management have areas where they will be set stretching targets over the next year, and we will all tackle this with continued determination and energy.”
A copy of the audit report can be viewed at www.shetland.gov.uk/bestvalue
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