Moray Council Must Urgently Improve Services Says Audit Scotland

27th August 2020

Services in Moray Council are continuing to deteriorate, in particular within education. There has been a significant decline in services since a previous report by the Accounts Commission in 2015.

A recent renewed focus to drive forward strategic change must be maintained. The Commission recognises these important recent steps, including putting in place ways to review performance and, significantly, a strategy to manage school buildings.

In a report published today, the Accounts Commission is clear that committed and decisive leadership will be needed to make the required changes. This means both councillors and officers need to work together, along with communities, to make difficult decisions that will improve services across the area for local people. This includes tackling the relatively low educational attainment delivered within a schools' estate in the worst condition in Scotland.

Elma Murray, Interim Chair of the Accounts Commission said:It is deeply worrying that services for local people have declined significantly over the last five years. On the basis of past performance there is limited assurance and confidence that the council can make the significant depth of improvement needed.

The Accounts Commission have instructed auditors to follow up on today's report, with a further assessment of the council's position within 18 months. Councillors and officers must build on recent steps to work collaboratively to address poor educational attainment, ensure its finances are sustainable in the longer term and better understand how its services are performing.

Key messages from the report

1 The council has received six Best Value reports since 2006 consistently highlighting Best Value issues and slow progress in addressing these. This has continued, since 2015, with political instability and lack of focus resulting in a slow pace of change. Recent progress is now being made toward some significant strategic decisions.

2 Recent progress includes a corporate management team restructure, committee structure review, new performance management framework and a review of the learning estate strategy. Most of these are still at an early stage. Progress against the council's transformational plan has so far been limited.

3 The council's financial position is extremely challenging, and it

continues to rely on lots of small savings and using reserves to balance its budget. This is unsustainable over the medium term and the council is at risk of depleting its general fund reserves in four years.

4 Performance reporting in the council focuses on each service but

it is difficult to see how this contributes to the council achieving its

overall priorities. The council is implementing its revised performance management framework and is developing wider corporate indicators.

5 Performance relative to other councils has deteriorated over the past five years, particularly in educational attainment. Overall, Moray is one of the lowest performing Scottish local authorities, a significant decline since 2014/15, when Moray was placed 12th. The council has put in place additional measures to give young people more opportunities to improve attainment.

6 Council properties are in poor condition predominantly because the condition of Moray’s learning estate is the worst in Scotland. The council has previously found it difficult to make decisions regarding key assets, but it is now starting to work together to agree and implement strategies.

7 Workforce morale is good and staff commitment to change is positive, but staff survey responses have identified workload issues. The capacity of staff to deliver change has been identified as a limiting factor in several areas in this report. This represents a significant risk in delivering Best Value going forward.

8 The strategic focus of the Community Planning Partnership (CPP) on outcome and performance has also been slow to improve, though the CPP demonstrated good partnership working in addressing issues in children’s services.

9 The council demonstrates some good progress in implementing

community empowerment and has developed a corporate engagement strategy to involve communities in the future of council service.

Read the report HERE