91 per cent of council owned business units are occupied

SENIOR councillors are set to discuss a report that looks back over the last year and forward to the future.
The Finance and Performance report for 2022/2023 will be presented at a meeting of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s cabinet next Wednesday, June 7.
The report is seen as a key improvement tool and provides the council with a reporting framework to gauge its performance.
Performance and democratic service manager, Gemma Wasley said: “Information included in the report is gathered from a number of different sources including updates from business plans, drawing evidence from strategic reports and data analysis.
“This provides a detailed view of the activity and performance of the council. ”
Ms Wasley explains that the in-depth document looks at all aspects of the council’s work and includes key achievements; financial information; well-being goals; residents input, progress against the corporate plan priorities; case studies; what the regulators say, risk management; and focus for the future.
The report notes that key achievements include buying two properties to convert into children’s care homes and pushing ahead with a proposal to build a new Welsh medium primary school.
Increasing funding directly to schools by £3.9 million, a 91 per cent of business units are occupied and 6,132 people have used the council’s community hubs, are also noted as successes.
The report said that Audit Wales have concluded a number of reports during the last year which included proposals for improvement that the council will now endeavour to implement.
Estyn inspected the education department which came out well in their report, with three recommendations including one on leadership to address.
Details of the council’s risk register are also included in the report.
Some new risks such as the cost of living crisis, cyber security, and the difficulty in recruiting staff especially for jobs in social services have been added the register.
Several risks have also been de-escalated and are now bunched together with other risks on the register or removed completely.
The risk posed by the Covid-19 pandemic to delivering council services has been downgraded and is included in a more general risk to “business continuity.”
Brexit and the effect of leaving the European Union to the county borough has been “retired” from the list with the problems to be picked up in the cost of living crisis risk.
In April the report was discussed by councillors at a meeting of the Corporate Overview and Performance scrutiny committee
At that meeting councillors voted to advise the cabinet to provide further suggestions to the report as well as agree that an executive summary is written alongside the report with info-graphics.
This is so that the report is “more user friendly” for the public to read. ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​

By BBC LDRS ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​