Denbighshire County Council has formally responded to the findings of the recent Wales Audit Annual Improvement Report.
During a meeting at County Hall, the Council discussed the findings in detail and heard what steps are being taken to address two recommendations made by the Wales Audit Office (WAO).
The WAO report concluded that the Council is delivering improved services for residents and has made good progress in addressing areas previously highlighted as needing improvement.
Leader of Denbighshire, Councillor Hugh Evans, said:”The Council has come a long way from 2008 when regulators had serious concerns about the ability of the Council to improve. Denbighshire is now one of the highest performing councils in Wales. For the second year running, Denbighshire has been identified as achieving the best overall performance in Wales across nationally agreed targets.
“Some of our services are recognised as being amongst the best in Wales, including waste collection, council tax collection and street lighting. We are in line to achieve the Welsh Housing Quality Standard for all of our council houses (where many councils have made little progress).
“Our services for older people is improving with two extra care schemes opening in the past year and our performance in education has improved significantly. The findings of the recent inspection of education services will be released in the coming weeks and informal feedback suggests we are one of the best performing councils in Wales in this area of work.”
“The changes to the Council’s senior management team and to the Council’s scrutiny system have also been acknowledged by the WAO as contributing positively to the improvement of the Council”.
The report also recommended that the Council should establish how it will support the Rhyl Going Forward delivery plan, showing how it fits with the county’s regeneration programme; that staff and resources should be in place to support the programme and that evaluation will take place.
Work is already underway on a county regeneration strategy, which will have been adopted by September.
A dedicated team has been brought in to lead an increased focus on the work in Rhyl, with extra funding allocated by the Council to support regeneration.
Key projects already committed to to the development of the Foryd harbour and pedestrian/cycle bridge, proposals for West Rhyl and money to develop a new business hub in the town centre.
The second area that needs further progress involves the need for the Council to provide a more robust self assessment of its effectiveness in its annual review of governance. Work is planned to strengthen this area of work through performance challenge and the overarching corporate self assessment.
Councillor Evans added: “Whilst many of services are good, or excellent in some cases, we recognise that there is always room for improvement. We have already taken steps to address the recommendations in the report and we will continue to strive for excellence in all areas of our work.
“Key to this is our efforts to collaborate with other organisations to deliver the best possible services for our residents, as well as working to become closer to our communities.”
