Agenda item

[NOTE: Councillor A. Evans having earlier declared an interest in this item remained in the meeting for its consideration and voting thereof.]

The Committee considered the Council’s draft Annual Report for 2022/23 together with the new Council Well-Being Objectives (WBO) detailed reports falling within the remit of the committee namely:

·       WBO1 – Enabling our children and young people to have the best possible start in life (Start Well)

·       WBO2 – Enabling our residents to live and age well (Live and Age Well)

·       WBO3 – Enabling our communities and environment to be healthy, safe and prosperous (Prosperous Communities)

·       WBO4 – To further modernise and develop as a resilient and efficient Council (Our Council)

The Leader in presenting the report highlighted that this report was a statutory requirement, and by using the well-being objectives to frame the self-assessment enabled the Council to integrate the reporting requirement of both the Local Government & Election (Wales) Act and the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act into a single report.

The report provided information on how the Council engaged with citizens and stakeholders across all key Council functions.

The comments/observations were responded to as follows:

·       Reference was made to the specific grants received from Welsh Government as they equated to the total amount at 16% that the Council receives from council tax. In response to a query, the Leader confirmed the amount the Council received from council tax in the overall spend, was small in comparison to the importance of the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) received from Welsh Government.  There were ongoing discussions at an all-Wales level. The Leader informed members that the Minister for Finance and Local Government, would be visiting Carmarthenshire in the next week where a discussion would take place in regard to the current grant situation and possible consolidation in the RSG.  Information would be circulated to Committee Members outside of the meeting.

·       The Cabinet Member for Resources explained that the Council was dependent on grants to maintain the revenue budget.

·       In response to a query, the Head of Financial Services, confirmed that the non-domestic collection rate was 97.97% which was marginally down on the previous year.  Non-domestic rates are pooled across Wales and therefore, any under or over collection within an individual local authority would go into the pool and be shared across Wales. The authority is protected from any variation of local economic factors.

·       The Head of Regeneration, Policy and Digital, in response to a query on retailer vacancies and retailers going into administration, confirmed that the landlord would be liable for rates albeit that there is an interim vacant 3 month void period.

·       In response to a query regarding a decline on statutory response targets to complaints, the Corporate Policy and Partnership Manager, explained that there had been an increase in number of complaints received by the Authority during the same period.  The complaints received were of a complex nature that needed time to be investigated thoroughly.  It was reported that a detailed Complaints Annual Report would be presented to the next Governance and Audit Committee.

·       In response to a query, the Corporate Policy and Partnership Manager clarified that a directive to Heads of Service from internal audit regarding management response time had been actioned.

·       In response to a query, the Business Support Manager confirmed that a written response would be provided to the Committee, explaining as to why there was an increase in the number of death registrations in Carmarthenshire during 2022/23, including an increase in cases requiring coronial involvement.

UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED to receive the report.