At its meeting on Thursday 4 November, the Council considered and agreed the Best Value Audit Report which was presented by Audit Scotland having been approved by the Accounts Commission last month.
Joint Council Leader Andrew Polson said, “We welcome this fantastic Best Value Report, and are pleased that it recognised the effective services we deliver, with specific mention of the strong leadership we have in place.
“I truly believe this to be one of the best Best Value reports in Scotland. East Dunbartonshire is often recognised as a great place to live and to bring up a family. This Best Value report reinforces this and I personally am delighted to live and work here.”
Audit Scotland presented the report to Council and highlighted its key findings including:
- The Council has demonstrated a good pace of improvement since the last Best Value report in 2017.
- The people of East Dunbartonshire are more satisfied with Council services than in other areas in Scotland, but the council is not complacent and is delivering improvement projects.
- The Council and its partners have a clear vision for the area, work well together through the LOIP and Place Plans and are focussed on the needs of communities.
- The Council Leaders and Chief Executive provide effective leadership in delivering the Council priorities and officers and elected members work well together.
- The Council is aware of where it needs to improve and its performance management has improved with a comprehensive framework in place.
- The Council reacted well to the challenge of the pandemic and recovery from Covid-19 is being built in to governance arrangements.
Joint Council Leader Vaughan Moody added, “We were pleased to accept the findings of this report which clearly recognise the good work that takes place in East Dunbartonshire to ensure that our residents receive the best possible services from the Council. This would not be possible without the significant efforts of our fantastic workforce, and this was acknowledged as we discussed the report.
“We continue to set ourselves ambitious targets and have an action plan in place to progress the recommendations of the report and to ensure that we are best placed to continue to deliver effective services locally, particularly as we recover from the pandemic.”
Audit Scotland presented the Best Value Report to the Accounts Commission in September and by considering and agreeing the findings, the Council was fulfilling its statutory responsibility to respond.