Accounts Commission May 2026 public session

Jo Armstrong  0:00
Welcome to today's meeting of the Accounts Commission, which today is being held in Edinburgh. This public session is being recorded. The recording will be made available via the Accounts Commission's website as soon as possible and is available on request on the interim.
Members of the public are also welcome to observe the public session of the Commission meeting today. Those who are watching this morning, thank you for taking the time to join us. You're here to observe, however, and not to participate and therefore your camera and microphone are already off. I'd like to particularly welcome Kathryn Lindsay and Ian Lorimer from Angus Council for joining us today in person. Thanks a lot for coming along.
Please note that the meeting chat function is not in use. If you experience any technical issues, please contact our support colleagues separately via Teams or by emails to the address given in the calendar invite. 
Commission members, please keep your camera on throughout the meeting, but keep your microphone on mute because the room microphone will pick it up. 
Others participating in the meeting, please keep your camera off and your microphone on mute except when it is your item.
So item one then, apologies for absence. Sarah? 

Sarah Watters  1:13
We have apologies from Andy Cowie and Nichola Brown, and Christine Lester is joining us online today.

Jo Armstrong  1:23
Takes us to declarations of connections. Can I ask any members who have any connection or interest regarding any items on today's agenda to please state the connection or interest and whether they consider it material enough to need to recuse themselves?
Malcolm.

Malcolm Bell
Chair, yeah, I, usual connection for item 15, FPAM, as a member of another audited body.

Jo Armstrong
Jennifer. 

Jennifer Henderson
In a similar vein to Malcolm for item 15, the usual declaration, but also for the item 14, quality of public audit, as a chief exec of another public body, I did fill in the survey on that, so my data is in there somewhere, but I don't think that's material enough to recuse myself.

Carol Evans
Same as Malcolm for item 15, I work… am a non-exec for a audited body.

Jo Armstrong
Anyone else? Angela.

Angela Leitch
Similarly, item 15, I'm a member of another public body.

Jo Armstrong
But not, not sufficient?

Angela Leitch
No, not sufficient…

Jo Armstrong  2:31
That takes us to item 3, order of business. As normal, I'd like to seek the Commission's approval for the order of business today. I propose we consider items 9 to 17 in private for the reasons set out on the agenda. Are members agreed?
[Agreed.]
Item 4, minutes and matters arising from the previous meeting. Sarah? 

Sarah Watters  2:51
Yeah, so this month members are asked to approve two sets of minutes, both from the March meeting and the April meeting. That was due to April being held in private due to the pre-election period. 
But there were two outstanding, but there are two outstanding actions. One is in relation to the local government benchmarking framework.
So at the end of, at the August meeting, we will have Kenneth Lawrie and Emily Lynch coming along to the Commission to talk about the framework. But I will send a reminder to members in kind of late July, early August about the areas of focus you would like for that session. 
And I'm still in discussion with the Controller of Audit about when we'll bring an update, an appropriate time to bring an update on the local audit office work in England through the Ministry of Housing, Local Government and Communities.
Happy to take any comments or questions for either minute.

Jo Armstrong  3:43
Questions. No errors or omissions. People therefore content to approve? Thank you.
That then takes us to the substantive item today, which is the best value in Angus Council.
Welcome Pauline and Mark as the auditors and Helena, the Controller of Audit. 
This is a statutory report by the Controller of Audit on best value in Angus Council. The report draws attention to the findings from the council’s 24/25 annual audit report on how effectively it demonstrates best value.
The Commission is invited to consider and endorse the Controller's report in this session. We will then consider in private later today how we wish to proceed. 
The Controller and the auditor are here to provide any clarifications or answers to questions that members may have on both the Controller's report and the annual audit report as it relates to best value. Helena. 

Helena Gray  4:45
Thank you and good morning everybody. And I welcome the opportunity to discuss my best value report on Angus Council with the Commission this morning. And I'm delighted to be joined by Pauline and Mark from the audit team. And I thank them and the audit team for all of their hard work.
As my report highlights, the council has effective government's arrangements, a clear vision and priorities, and elected members and officers work well together. Auditors observe appropriate scrutiny and challenge, with relationships remaining professional and constructive. 
A previous best value audit report highlighted the needs for a council-wide approach to engaging communities, and in September 2023, the council launched its online platform, which has supported improved engagement and was used effectively for public consultation on the 25/26 budget. 
In terms of overall performance, auditors concluded that the council has an appropriate performance management framework, which was approved in December 2024 and embedded over the last year. The framework includes improved controls in relation to review, scrutiny and escalation of performance matters. 
Overall, performance is shown in a mixed picture. The council has a well-established change programme which it introduced in 2014 with projects linked to strategic priorities. The council has a well-developed approach to identifying and reporting the financial benefits of the change programme and has a good track record of delivering against its savings targets, although this appears to be getting harder. The council has a new approach to reporting on wide benefits which auditors will consider as part of future audit work. 
Finally, auditors have concluded that the council has sound financial management.
My report highlights the council's medium term budget strategy forecasts a budget gap of 24.5 million to 28/29, which it plans to close using a mix of council tax increases, strategic use of reserves and savings from its change programme. We do have a slight update to those figures following the council's budget discussions this year, which the team and I will be happy to run through during the discussion.
But I'll pause there and we look forward to answering your questions. 

Jo Armstrong  7:00
Thanks, Helena. As is the norm now, our standard procedure for discussing these reports is to organise our lines of questioning into themes.
Today, we have the six themes of performance, community engagement, transformation, finances, leadership, and anything that doesn't quite fit under those headings. 
So, the first theme today is performance. Jennifer, can I ask you to lead off the questioning?

Jennifer Henderson  7:23
Thank you Jo. And thank you, Helena, for your summary. And I think I would echo
your point about lots of the things we read in the report, are the things we would want councils to be doing, so that was encouraging. And I think I'd also add I was encouraged to see how well the council had responded to recommendations from previous reports. There was really good evidence that they'd taken that feedback on board. 
You mentioned the mixed picture on performance and that was the thing I wanted to pick up on. And the first question I had was about whether we've got good evidence around whether the areas the council have chosen to prioritise are the ones where performance is improving, because I think it's fair to say we are often challenging councils to say you need to make choices, you need to engage with your communities about those choices, and people need to understand the impact of the things you maybe won't be investing in. 
So I wonder if you've got any evidence from your audit work around, is the money making a difference where they've chosen to prioritise? And then as a sort of build on that question is, you reference in your report some quite long-term data around the changes in the trends, sort of going all the way back to the base year in 2010.
And I just wonder if you can shed any light on what we know about what's happened in the more recent years, because the last few years, obviously post-Covid, I think we'd probably be interested to understand if there's anything about trends in performance there. And again, particularly trends in the areas where they've chosen to invest. 
So, two-part question, if that's all right, Helena.

Helena Gray  8:55
Yes, thank you. And I'll start and then I'll bring the team in as well. 
So I suppose the first thing I would say, that, as I mentioned in my introduction, the performance management framework is a new framework, so it's still taking time to bed in.
In terms of the council's own priorities, they have identified 70 indicators which match against their strategic priorities and they report on these in both the short term and the long term. So the short term, they have reported that out of the 70 indicators, 32 indicators are improving, 5 no change and 27 declining, with 6 where they have no data at this point. 
In the long term KPIs, it’s 36 improving, 2 no change and 27 declining. So I think, still showing that mixed picture, I suppose, that as I alluded to, for both the medium term and the short term as the council reports it. 
In terms of the baseline that you mentioned, the 2010/11, so that's when we use the local government benchmarking framework, looking across all of the indicators collected as part of that.
So the local government benchmarking framework uses the baseline year of 2010/11 for the majority of their indicators, although it does vary, for measures that they've introduced later on. 
I think there's a couple of points here, of course, different baseline years could be chosen, but then that becomes a subjective choice. And at the moment, if we're looking at a council's relative position in that overview, as you'll have seen that I report in exhibit 2 in my reports, that overview position is only reported for the baseline year and the most recent year. So at an individual indicator level in the local government benchmarking framework, you can go and you can choose a different baseline year and you can and you can start, but if you're looking for that overview performance, the way that it's reported at the moment through the local government benchmarking framework dashboards is just that base versus the most recent year.
Just, as my report highlights, of the 108 local government benchmarking framework indicators, 49% have improved since the base year, 6% remained the same and 45% have worsened. So again, an overall mixed picture. 
I think what I would also highlight is if you look at the council's relative position again, as you can do in exhibit, in the exhibit in my report, the cost indicators have declined in terms of the percentage in the top two quartiles, but the performance and satisfaction indicators as a percentage of those top two quartiles have also improved. 
So I think overall, as I said, it's, you know, performance is a complicated picture, but I think our overall conclusion was that it's showing a mixed picture. But again, important to take that against what we know is happening across councils as well. And that's a fairly similar picture we've seen elsewhere as well. 

Jennifer Henderson
I'll hand to colleagues to pick up on a couple of other points.

Jo Armstrong
Carol.

Carol Evans  12:21
Sticking with the theme of performance, and linked to Jennifer's question about the prioritisation, I would be interested to understand, for what seems a very well-run council, the quite large decline, 73% in culture and leisure and adult social care and the 91% decline in satisfaction and community engagement. 
So it's just really what’s kind of going on there and is it a prioritisation or what, what's kind of underlying those declines because they're quite big, two of them at least are quite big areas.

Helena Gray 12:55
Yeah, again, I’ll bring the team in who might have more to add on this, but I suppose I would say that, again, from a national picture, it's also, it's a complex picture nationally as well. 
In terms of the specifics, I would also highlight that while satisfaction with libraries and parks and open spaces and leisure facilities may have declined, this is, this is a consistent decline across the Scotland average and family group. And I’d highlight that actually Angus is higher than the family group and Scotland average on those satisfaction indicators. And again, I show that… But the costs to the public have risen and the council is higher than the family group and Scotland average for the cost per visit to libraries and open spaces. 
But I’ll bring the team in who might have a bit more to say about the choices that the council have made and then particularly on the adult social care side as well. 

Pauline Gillen  14:01
Yeah, I suppose just to say that I think the decline in performance and satisfaction levels is probably indicative of the decisions that the council have had to make over the years in order to meet financial sustainability challenges. And we can see that through a lot of the feedback. 
As part of the community engagement, we note in the report, the Engage Angus, the online portal that allows members of the community to feed in to the budget setting process. And for 25/26, they specifically asked the community for their thoughts on the council's priorities and whether they felt they were appropriate and they were right.
They’d been in place in the council plan for 23 to 2028. So obviously since 2023, it's just a valuable check in to see, are these the same priorities that you wish the council to be pursuing. I think broadly speaking, there was support for the council's priorities, and an understanding of the challenges that the council is facing. 
The, part of the survey was to ask about what the thoughts were on how to meet the financial challenges, increasing council tax, cutting back on services. And I think there was more of a sense that the community was more in favour of council tax increases rather than cutting back services any more than they are. So we probably see that coming through in the council having to make difficult decisions, which is reflected.
But as Helena said, I think that's common across councils, particularly for the adult social care performance figures, which in a couple of areas have seen a decline and that's related to, you know, increasing demand, complex needs and financial challenges across the sector. So I don't think Angus are unusual in that.
But I think from the consultation they’ve had with the community, I think we're confident that the priorities are right and that they are the right priorities to be focusing on.

Carol Evans  16:14
Out of the 101… But, do they have, you know, are they, do they have, how do they approach those? Do they just try and work on all 101 or have they deliberately stratified them into different priority groups for focus? So it's just to get a sense of how they, how they, how they manage that performance.

Helena Gray
So their strategic… so their… they’ve identified 70 KPIs that are aligned to their strategic…

Carol Evans
So they don’t work from the local benchmark framework?

Helena Gray
No, so those are the so there is their strategic priorities in support… Sorry, those are their indicators, 70 indicators in support of their strategic priorities that they have identified. And I was giving the wider local government benchmarking framework indicators to put that into that context as well.

Pauline Gillen
So they don't specifically prioritise any one over another. But underneath each of the priorities, there is a range of actions that support that, and that can be seen through the council's delivery plan.

Michael Neilson  17:25
I just want to pick up really and follow-up on Jennifer's question, because it seems to me that the...
In a sense what we're really interested in is how far the arrangements to achieve best value are translated into performance … in that context, identifying whether relative performance against other councils for those areas they have determined as priorities is actually following the more general trends.
Or, I, whether there’s a difference between their priorities, and I, I don't think I, I don't think I picked up a specific response on that part, which it does feel to me, 4 or 5 years feels like a better way for judging whether the current administration is … arrangements for best value are working, rather than going back to 2011. 
So it's trying to really get at what will help us judge effectively whether arrangements are turning into performance. 

Helena Gray  18:42
And I mean, I think on that, obviously, we've used the local benchmarking framework for a number of reports and years and that's, those are the baseline years that the local government benchmarking framework allows comparisons with. But I think in terms of your specifics around how the council is judging its own performance against its priorities, we can say a bit about the new performance management framework that the council has put in place. 
I think from our perspective, it's only just been rolled out and so it's too early really to offer a view on how that has been implemented and how the council are drawing those conclusions that you're asking for, Mike. 
I understand the council will be undertaking a review of their performance management framework at sort of end of 2025. So I don't know if we have an update on that, and we'll be assessing the effectiveness of that as part of our ongoing audit work. But Pauline, I don't know if you want to say a bit more about that.

Pauline Gillen  19:53
Yes, so in our best value assurance report in 2022, we noted slow progress in implementing their performance led, performance management framework. There was also an internal audit review carried out in June 23/24, which gave limited assurance and had a number of improvements that were required.
In last year, they’ve rolled out PLED, which is performance-led, performance management framework. So it's been in place for around a year and council have agreed that after the first year of implementation, they would do a review of it to see the effectiveness of it and we'll follow that up as part of our audit this year. 
And I think the intention is, they recognise that the performance management framework is reliant on good quality data, recognising the vital asset that data is to the council and the huge, huge amount of it they have at their disposal. And I think that's been a key learning from the performance management about the need to use data better to be able to make strategic decisions, unpopular, difficult decisions and to be able to support that with evidence and high-quality data. And then to be able to demonstrate the impact of those decisions. So that's an ongoing project and as I said we’ll follow that up in this year’s audit.

Carol Evans  21:26
A supplementary on that? So their transformation best value report seems to be performing well, and they seem to be doing that benefits realisation and monitoring the effectiveness of the transformation. So are they taking learnings from that back into the general performance as part of that performance management process as well? 

Pauline Gillen
Yes, yes, and you’ll have noted in the, in that thematic review, we spoke about the robust reporting of financial side of it, savings they are achieving, but not so much on the non-financial, so the outcomes and what they are achieving from their change programme. And again, that will flow through with the performance management framework, where they're able to look at the data that supports that, because obviously the measuring the financial benefits is significantly easier than the non-financial benefits, and that's where, that's where their data strategy will come into play.

Jo Armstrong  22:24
Conscious there’s a few other questions on their performance, but I think we’ve probably covered performance? 
OK, that takes us into community engagement, which we’ve partly touched on, but not fully. Angela, are you able to lead off on that one?

Angela Leitch  22:35
OK, thank you, Chair. And thanks to Helena and the auditors. It's a really good report, comprehensive and great to see the progress that the council is making. 
It's a slightly different perspective on performance that I wanted to ask about. So it's great to see the Angus Engages tool up and running. I think that's a great way forward. I'm just wondering to what extent the feedback is there to the public in terms of the priorities and choices that are being made. 
You know, obviously, you've said that there was a choice about council tax versus service cuts. Notwithstanding that, all councils are having to really think about services that they're prioritising.
So, I'm just wondering about the understanding of the public in general or the attempts to improve that understanding, because a lot of that depends on the residents themselves. But how well is the council trying to get the message out about the priorities so that the electorate are understanding the choices that have to be made?

Helena Gray  23:46
Thanks, and I'll bring the team in to talk a bit more about Engage Angus, the platform, as well. 
I think, as I highlighted in my introduction, this is an area that auditors highlighted in the 22 best value assurance report, and the council recognised that it didn't have that council-wide approach for engaging with the community and consulting on the budget, hence, I think, launching this platform, which was used in the 25/26 budget setting process. 
So, I don't know if you want to say a bit more about the range of responses and the how, as well, the use of the platform has evolved and was used for the 25/26 but also the 26/27 budget?

Pauline Gillen  24:35
Touch on that. So yes, an online platform, surveys, polls, etc, and lots of information on there for the community and opportunities for them to engage in the early stages of any council decision making. 
They, for the 25/26 budget, they did it in two stages. So first of all, they asked about the council priorities and asked, asked the respondents to the survey to rank them and say which ones did they agree that were a priority or not.
And, as I said earlier, it was a broadly consistent view on the areas that the council considered to be a priority and that which the community did. 
The second part of the survey was an interactive tool and it asked, it gave four options for meeting financial challenges and budget gaps. So, savings, increasing council tax, efficiencies, cutting back services, increases, increases in fees and charges, broadly speaking, the four options. And it had a, I suppose, an infographic.
So people, a slide where you would slide it up and it would show you the difference if you increase council tax by 1%, what would the impact be? So it was quite interactive and quite a useful visual tool for people to understand. 
And the, broadly from that, people aren't always going to be happy about council tax increases, but there was a recognition the position the council was in, wanted to protect services, that a council tax increase would broadly be supported. 
The findings, the detailed findings from the survey went to the policy and budget scrutiny group, which is a cross-party group, and it also went to full council as part of the papers supporting the budget setting meeting, so the members could see what the community were saying. 
Whether you can then map that into a direct impact on the council's decision making, I don't think there's a clear linkage between that.
Obviously, councils have to make difficult decisions and they don't make them in isolation. So while they are aware of what the community has fed back, it doesn't necessarily mean they can meet the requirements of what the community said. 
For 26/27, they took a different approach, and they tried to extend the reach of the survey, including targeting disadvantaged groups, minority groups. Also young people, so circulated amongst head teachers and schools and asked them to socialise with their, with young people at school. Also community groups to try, and housing tenant groups, to try and get as much, as much impact from the survey as they possibly could. Also making hard copy versions available in libraries, etc. 
So the 2627 survey had more free text options to allow people to put in their thoughts and I think, although you get valuable data from some types of surveys, sometimes getting detail from people that are allowed to put free text comments in, you can get quite a lot of valuable intelligence from that. 
They were asked to rank the services that were of most importance to them. And interestingly, coming from that, there was less, less desire for council tax increases, unsurprisingly. There was a specific question asking about whether they thought council tax represented value for money and 70% said no. So I think that's probably indicative of some of the difficult decisions the council’s had to make over the last few years, and some of the comments pointed to declines in service, cuts to services and money perhaps being spent in areas that they wouldn't necessarily have wanted. So again, that was fed back to the policy and budget scrutiny group and went to elected members as part of budget setting.

Angela Leitch
Thank you. That's hugely reassuring to be honest, just, not just the use of the online tool, but the extent to which they expanded that and gone out to speak to people direct, and appreciate the difficult decisions that have to be made. 

Jo Armstrong  29:22
Thanks Angela. 
Handing over to Malcolm. Can I ask all to speak up a bit, so the recording can pick up all of the discussions? 
Malcolm. 

Malcolm Bell
In actual fact, chair, thanks. I was going to ask about the Engage Angus platform and how … it was and hard-to-reach groups. I think that's been adequately covered so thanks for that.

Jo Armstrong  29:44
Are we content with community engagement? 
Yeah, thank you. 
On to transformation. Derek. 

Derek Yule  29:42
Thanks, chair. Probably a link to some of the points that have already been covered by members, but I wonder if I could sort of turn to look at the change programme that the council has. I think the narrative in your report’s very positive about what the council has achieved. 
But linking to performance, I noted the comment under the performance section of the report that amongst the reported areas of decline was the proportion of the change programme savings achieved. So I wonder if I could just understand a bit more about that and maybe tease out what might be behind that. And I suppose the question, then, is the scale of ambition, given what the council have achieved to date, going forward, is it’s, what's the scale of ambition versus the ability to continue to deliver, just to get, understand a bit more about that?
 
Helena Gray  30:40
Yeah, thank you. And again, I'll kick off and then probably bring the team in to talk about that future savings and that scale of ambition point. 
But I think the first point I'd make is, as I said in my introduction, the council has a track record of making savings. And my report highlights that the council has reported 98 million of savings from its core budget over the last 12 years. 
But as you pointed out, most recently, in 24/25, it achieved just about 82% of its planned change programmes, which is the lowest proportion that it's achieved since it began monitoring in 2018/19. 
I think it's still worth noting that it is a significant proportion, and reassuring that the council is monitoring the savings that it is achieving. And I understand that the council has indicated that for 25/26, they have achieved 94% of the savings target. 
So I think it's partly, I suppose, a recognition that the savings are hard to achieve. And, but as I said, I think it is reassuring that the council is monitoring and keeping track of the savings. And I believe it has red/amber/green rating status given to each of the projects and it is able to assess the likelihood of the savings being achieved as well. 
But I’ll bring in the team to talk about sort of that sense of ambition and then plans for future savings.

Mark Laird  32:21
Yep. So, as Helena says, it's becoming very, very hard to continue to make savings, and the council has a great track record, as Helena also said. 
The savings in 24/25, somewhat, seen as somewhat of a blip in the achievement of savings and a track record that, as I said, was very good. And as Helena also said, 94% looking towards this year, which is encouraging.
The reasons for changing, the savings not achieved in 24/25 are various, some were cancelled by members, some were just timing, so they're rolled into the following year, some were slippage, as I say, and some were just changes in circumstances.
So looking forward to future savings, that I mean, limited savings are currently included in 27/28 and 28/29 plans, although a lot of projects are in the pipeline, these have been created and will be tracked as part of the change programme when they're at an appropriate stage of development. 
So the pipeline will be reported regularly to the change board, as is currently the case for all savings through the change programme, as that's the mechanism to support the development of the change programme on an ongoing basis. 
Where pipeline projects involve making strategic and policy decisions that are out with the delegated powers of officers, these will be presented for consideration by elected members as well.

Jo Armstrong  33:59
Can I can I pick up on the, not a throwaway line, but it just seems definitely worthy of probing a bit further. Savings that were, which were agreed by the membership then have been cancelled by the members, on what basis were they cancelled by the members?
Can they just wilfully choose to decide not to deliver the savings that were committed to deliver? 

Mark Laird
No, I think achievability was just reassessed.

Jo Armstrong
Achievability was assessed by whom and why not at the decision time when they made their first decisions in the budget process?

Pauline Gillen  34:34
So I think, so we have a, so there's regular reporting on the projects that aren't expected to achieve their target. And that's kept under constant review. As Helena said, there's a RAG rating, so if it looks as if they're potentially at risk then they'll escalate to the change board and take mitigating actions. 
So there's a list, a variety of projects in 24/25 that didn’t go ahead for a number of different reasons. Some of the larger ones, so just for an example, they had a
project around their kerbside recycling, quite a large project. There were some delays in getting that off the ground, so the savings that are anticipated from that have been pushed… 

Jo Armstrong
So they’re delayed rather than not, not going to be delivered at all?

Pauline Gillen  35:27
There was also a significant saving around the potential disposal of its building, Angus House. So a decision had been made that it would be disposed of and sold, which would obviously generate capital receipt and recurring savings. 
But I think the marketing of it had indicated that there wasn’t at that point the market to take it on and the council revisited the proposal and I think that's been taken off the market and maybe, future proposals for it perhaps to lease some of it out and to fit as part of their agile transformation and estates strategy, think about how they could better use it. 
So again, that was an amount of money, don’t have it to hand, an amount of money that came out of the 24/25 plan. 

Jo Armstrong  36:17
So can I just finish that loop then and the extent to which the project gets cancelled in year, what happens to the budget that was set at the beginning of the year that had assumed that saving would be delivered? What happens to that budget process?

Helena Gray
So that would have been managed through the overall budget position and, 1.14 shortfall. But there was an overall underspend for the budget overall for 24/25. 

Jo Armstrong
So it is actively managed and actively agreed?

Jo Armstrong
Anything else on transformation? Ruth? 

Ruth Macleod  36:53
Yeah, thank you. I was just wondering if you could shed any light on why the change fund was not more fully utilised in terms of supporting transformation projects. There was obviously a commitment to spend a certain amount there and it fell quite short and I just wonder what had happened there, was that in relation to savings or something else that had happened that you didn't see that money being spent in the way that was intended?

Helena Gray  37:21
Yes, so the change fund, I think, at the end of 24/25, the balance on the fund was 0.5 million roughly. And there's a change board that is responsible for authorising and monitoring the use of that fund. And it's used on a case-by-case programme rather than being allocated as a fixed programme. So officers have authority to use it for projects that meet a set of relevant criteria to respond to issues that have arisen or opportunities. 
So, I’ll bring in the team, but I think my sense is more about the management of the fund rather than the fund not being utilised.

Pauline Gillen  38:07
Yeah, they take it on a case-by-case basis and part of it is recognising that for some of the change projects, they are very resource intensive and quite often it's the same people who are involved in them so it’s just recognising that there might be need for additional resource to help get projects over the line. So there's set criteria that the board considered before giving money from the change funds that was used, particularly for two of the projects, the purchase and pay project and their access project last year were the two projects that utilised the change funds. And I think in 25/26 there's further bids to that fund.

Ruth Macleod
Thank you.

Jo Armstrong  38:52
I'm going to pick up one other question under transformation because I think it's kind of relevant from thinking about longer-term planning. The extent to which the Tayside Contracts experience and the shared services approach, is that one they're actively looking at across a variety of services now as a way of increasing efficiencies, increasing economies of scale and allowing them to deliver more for the diminishing budget?

Helena Gray
Yeah, so again, I’ll bring the team in to talk about Tayside Contracts, which obviously delivers a range of catering, construction, fleet and facilities management services for Angus, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross councils. So, do you want to say a bit more about the experience of that?

Pauline Gillen  39:37
Yes, so that's been a really successful shared service and has been in existence for quite some time. And it reports on the surpluses that Tayside Contracts have returned to the three councils and in 24/25 there was 6.9 million pound turnover from external sources., because Tayside Contracts does commercial business as well, which is 1.4 million pounds over target. So it's a really successful model and the council are actively looking at opportunities, they already have shared services for internal audit, and they’re looking at other, there’s a project for payroll as well, considering shared services with another council for payroll as well. 

Jo Armstrong
So we’ve got nothing more or nothing larger than those things? I'm thinking of other services that they're doing, extent to which the lessons learned from this are being fed through to thinking more strategically across a regional area, for example.

Pauline Gillen
Yeah, they have another shared service that we read about as part of our community engagement and it relates to the Monifieth activity centre. So this is quite innovative, so it's a community, community-led project, it’s a community centre that provides leisure facilities and learning and culture events. And it's a model where it's shifting service delivery from council to the community. So the centre is community-owned, community-led, but with support from the council. So it's on council land, and there's a lease in place. It opened in September 2024 and part of the council's, Angus Alive, the leisure trust, was planning to relocate the Monifieth library. Initially, the plan had been for it to go to the new Monifieth learning centre which is a bit out of town and they did some community engagement to get the community’s thoughts on that. There was a bit of push-back and t was a feeling it was a bit too far out of town, prefer something a bit more central. So the decision was then made on the back of that feedback to co-locate it in the activity centre, which I think is a good example of council, leisure trust and community services coming from one place and the council moving away from them providing the service and allowing the community to do that. 

Jo Armstrong
That’s helpful, thank you.

Helena Gray  42:07
I mean, I think the final thing I'd add to that is obviously we've talked about Tayside Contracts and I suppose what the interesting question is the extent to which others are, may well be looking to the model of Tayside Contracts. But I think what comes out through the BV transformation work, as well, is the history that the council has of collaborating with partners, I think it’s striking that around a third of the change projects set out in their transformation programmes involve partnership working, and eight are jointly funded, and the council is continuing to increase those, have those conversations with partners around those opportunities. So I think it's been highlighted as I think it's real area of strength. 

Pauline Gillen
I suppose just, and also to touch on the partnership working, the Tay Cities deal, which is a substantial set of projects with a number of other councils, which is, I think they're coming to the midpoint of the programme and they're having a reflection on what….

Jo Armstrong
…evaluating. I look forward to seeing that evaluation 
OK, that then takes us on to finances. Mike.

Michael Neilson  43:17
Just quickly on that, it is striking, in the various, there’s different dimensions of collaboration, you know, with the local health board and the leisure trust, with other local authorities and with the community. It feels as if that's a real area of strength to draw attention to.
On the financial sustainability, might be helpful just to hear what the updated picture is and then see what questions arise. 

Helena Gray  43:47
Yeah, should I just lead off on that? 
So, I highlighted in my introduction, the medium term financial strategy in December 2025 projected a budget gap of 24.5 million over 2026/27 to 28/29. I'm going to start throwing some numbers around, so pencils at the ready! 
So that gap has now been updated in March to 30.3 million. So it's gone 24.5 to 30.3 million. At the time, I'd highlighted that the council envisaged closing 15 million of the gap through council tax and strategic use of reserves, leaving 9.5 million to be addressed through budget savings. Now the forecast change programme savings are 10.5 million with the remaining 19.8 million to be filled through council tax increases and use of reserves, although obviously, open to further savings also being explored.

Michael Neilson
Can you just give me the...
Those numbers, it’s, is it 11 million from savings? 

Helena Gray
So it was, 10 point, for the update, so it's 10.5 million. 

Michael Neilson  45:03
Sorry, I just didn't… so thanks very much for that. 
I suppose the... even with those bigger figures for… the scale of the challenge for Angus appears to be at the lower end of the range in terms of overall impact. But it's still a challenge. It's still quite a significant challenge. 
It will be good to hear, I think, a little bit more about the reserves position since the sort of 0.5 million uncommitted reserve number broadly seems very, very low. But there's clearly quite a well-developed reserve strategy. So to understand how much is really committed against the potential need to… to fill the budget gap.
And the, the council tax assumptions for future increases seem to be quite significant. Which I guess, as your report highlights in paragraph 54 or something, the importance of the transformation activity accelerating, is going to be very big unless you're going to give me very reassuring numbers about the reserves.

Helena Gray  46:49
I'm going to bring the team in to run through the detail of the reserve strategy, but a couple of points I’d make first. 
The first is that I think it's important to note that the council had a steady increase in the level of reserves up to the end of March 2023. But since then, it has been using reserves for shortfalls in its budget, which as I highlight in my report isn't sustainable.
But I’ll bring the team in to talk through the specifics of the reserve strategy that was agreed in March this year.

Mark Laird  47:27
Yes, the current reserve strategy, or that agreed in March this year for 26/27 to 28/29, as Helena said, agreed a use of 10.5 million. 
Now, I think it's important to note that for 26/27, this will be the first year that the council haven't relied on reserves to balance the budget. There is a planned use of reserves, but those are for specific one-off reasons rather than to balance the budget. So, that's encouraging going forward.
The next two years within that three-year strategy, that promise can't be made at this stage, of course. Savings are being developed and delivered to close that gap as things go forward. 
In relation to council tax, also important to note that Angus have historically had the lowest council tax in the country or one of the very lowest council tax in the country. So I think they've got that room now to make those increases.
Sorry, I'll pass to Pauline just for a little bit more detail on that.

Pauline Gillen  48:28
Yeah, as part of the 26/27 budget setting process, management had prepared an analysis of levels of council tax going back a number of years, Angus compared to the other family councils, across Scotland, and provided that to members as a bit of supporting evidence as to the relative position Angus is in with being one of the lower levels of council tax for a long period of time and just what that cumulative impact has been on the council in terms of them trying to make additional savings.
So impressing upon members on one side the historically low levels council tax, but also the use of reserves into the future is not a long-term financially sustainable position to be in, and all of the budget papers that we see going to council or audit scrutiny, are always very clear on the use of reserves not being long-term financially possible. So, the council very clear on that.

Helena Gray  49:42
And just come back to the uncommitted point that you made, Mark, and again, I’ll pass… sorry, Mike, I’ll pass to Mark to give the, to give the figures. I think the point that I would highlight though is in what we saw last year in the earmarked
reserves is a specific contingency element earmarked, which was at 5.5 million, which is in line with 1.6% of the net revenue budget. So as you say, whilst the uncommitted, and Mark will give us a figure for that, there is an earmarked element which is for contingency.

Mark Laird  50:23
Yeah, the uncommitted element of the reserves strategy is around half a million, as you stated, which seems quite low. However, as Helena points out, 5.5 million is sitting in contingency, and we fully expect to see that again in this year's accounts, for the 25/26 accounts, as it’s in line with the policy.

Michael Neilson
If there’s a 20 million gap not currently covered by expected savings, 5 million seems quite a small amount of reserves in that context.

Helena Gray
Mike, do you want to put that in context of the, I suppose, the wider amounts that are sitting within the reserves? 

Mark Laird
Yeah, sorry. Well, the general fund reserve sits at just over 44 million. So 5.5, I suppose, is relatively small in the grand scheme of savings that need to be made, but it's fully in line with the policy, which I suppose could be revised this year, looking at the context and the wider context. So it's been sitting at around 1.6 of net revenue for the previous two years of least. However, that could be revised going forward.

Jo Armstrong  51:41
I suppose, it's odd looking at something that says it's earmarked, but you’re actually saying it’s not earmarked and that 44 million could be used whatever way they need to fund savings, or saving… to fund the gap that can't be funded by either council tax or efficiencies. 
But it's a bit, it’s a bit of a difficulty for the lay reader to understand actually they've got enough money to cover their cost. In fact, they will be using reserves to fund the budget by what you're just telling me here. The expectation rather than the…

Helena Gray
The planned use of reserves rather than unplanned use to fill the budget gap.

Jo Armstrong
But they need reserves, so then, so it's unsustainable in that sense.

Helena Gray
I mean, I think that's what, as we've highlighted in…

Jo Armstrong
Yeah yeah yeah.

Helena Gray
The use of reserves isn't sustainable. I think we’d point to the good track record that the council has in delivering savings to date and the, you know, the continued
renewal and refresh, I suppose, of the change programme and the work that they're doing around transformation. But I suppose the picture that we've highlighted here is one that many councils are also…

Jo Armstrong  52:51
Absolutely. It's just more of the kind of the transparency of work, that is difficult to actually help people understand, the reason why council taxes have to go up as high as it is, the reason why budget cuts are being cut, is because the reserves are not a sustainable position to be using, but we're comfortable at the moment, but that's… 
Is there anybody done any work within the council that says what's the trajectory, how long will it take for those reserves to be effectively run out? Have they got three years, five years, anybody done any of the work, does that look, does that work get done within the council to say, here’s our trajectory given our expenditures, given our savings capabilities. We're not delivering all that we, we’ve only delivered 80% or 90% of savings, so there's a gap that continues to grow and grow. Is anybody doing any of that work about the reserves, to see how long the reserves will last?

Mark Laird
It is done, there’s a long-term financial strategy there. I don't have the figures to hand, but I can, I can assure you of that. 

Jo Armstrong
Would that be available if we wanted to get it?

Mark Laird
Yes, yes, absolutely.

Helena Gray  53:48
And I think, I mean, I think it's fair to say that the financial sustainability is high on the council's strategic risk register, and reported regularly through that. So I think it's a position that we're well aware of.

Jo Armstrong
Any other questions? 

Carol Evans  54:05
It's linked to that and it touches on the next sessions on, section on leadership, but. So you've mentioned that about reserves, but how confident, I noticed that the senior, the leader and the senior leader, and there's a new structure being put in in 25. So that you've mentioned the good track record, from the early indicators, how confident are you in the new leadership being able to make the savings and reserves and all the things that's needed going forward?

Helena Gray  54:31
Yeah, so I mean, as my report highlights, there has been both the change in political leadership and a change in the senior officer structure of the council as well. 
I’ll bring in the team to share any immediate observations, but at the minute, I don't think there's been any concerns highlighted, although obviously that will be something that we’ll continue to keep under review as part of our ongoing audit work.

Pauline Gillen
Yeah, we don't have any concerns at this point, and we've noted in previous thematics and annual audit reports our confidence in the level of scrutiny and the joint working between elected members and management, so we don't, we don't have any concerns.

Carol Evans
Thank you.

Jo Armstrong
Derek.

Derek Yule  55:14
Thanks, chair.
I think I take a lot of comfort from the answers that you've given to some of the questions round about, sort of the reserves and the financial position of the council. I mean, I think as you say, they’re maybe in a slightly better position than others that we've seen, but equally there’s still challenges. 
I wonder if I could touch on something in particular that I didn't see mentioned in your report specifically, round about financial risk and particularly the integrated joint board. Where is Angus in relation to that, given that’s been highlighted, probably as the single biggest risk facing councils across the country, where does Angus rank there?

Helena Gray  55:56
So, I'll bring in the team who are also the auditors for the IJB, who can, who can share some of the, some of the detail. But I think in terms of that comparison with others, I’d say in the short term, I think that they're in a relatively more favourable position, so the 24/25 IJB reported an overall 2.43 million deficit, which is largely due to staffing vacancies and unmet need. 
The IJB does have a contingency reserve, which supports financial sustainability in the short term, and we'll know that not all IJBs do have that position, but there is a recognition that this is a strategic solution to addressing the future challenges and that there is a recurring shortfall in the future. But I’ll bring in the team to talk a bit more about those future challenges and how the IJB are managing them. 

Pauline Gillen  56:55
Yeah, obviously, the IJB in common with other IJBs, recognises the significant challenges they have with increases in demand, complex needs, ageing population, and also workforce and inflationary pressures. 
So last year, they met their 2.4 million deficit by use of reserves, so took their year-end reserves, March 2025, from 22.2 million down to 19.8 million. And I think there's another planned use of 1.8 million for 2026 that we’ll expect to see through in 2025/26 accounts. So recognise structural shortfall and the need to progress their strategic delivery plan to deliver the commissioning plans and objectives on that financially sustainable basis. But yeah, in common with other IJBs, probably not as bad as some, but certainly there are risks here with a structural shortfall.

Derek Yule  57:55
I suppose there's a common theme coming through about the use of reserves, whether it's the council itself or IJB. You spoke about an updated budget gap going forward, does that factor in the risks around the IJB in terms of funding future deficits there, or is that part of the budget funding projections? 

Pauline Gillen
I’m not sure.
Mark Laird
I think it does for the element that they're responsible for. It factors in the IJB spending, yes.

Jo Armstrong  58:26
Can I follow up on that, because I'm conscious that it's not necessarily all IJBs, nor indeed all councils have active monthly monitoring of cash requirements for the IJB, rather than, they've got an expectation that the IJB will deliver a set level of services, but they've got no control over demand, so the extent to which they're actively monitoring, monthly, the cash requirements, so they've got a good handle on and can manage the risks of excess, if you like, demand - excess is the wrong word, but demand that is not, was not planned.
Is there active monitoring of their contracts with the IJB that they understand the financial risks monthly with the IJB?

Pauline Gillen
I couldn't confirm off the top of my head, Mark, I’m not sure if you know?

Mark Laird
I couldn't say for certain, but I believe so.

Helena Gray
But in terms of the overall relationship. 

Mark Laird
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. 

Jo Armstrong
The financial risk is a bit opaque? They're not monitoring it actively and you're not aware of it and you’re the auditors, that it’s a bit opaque? That risk is therefore not clear to them?

Pauline Gillen
No, I think the risk, I think the risk is absolutely clear and from our attendance at committees and boards, we can see that risk coming through in member discussions. So I wouldn't say that it was it was opaque in anyway. 

Jo Armstrong  59:43
OK, thank you.
Anyone else want to, or are we finished with that? 
OK, that takes us to leadership. Carol.

Carol Evans
I've asked my question. 

Jo Armstrong
You have. OK, any other, anybody else got a question on leadership. Malcolm.

Malcolm Bell  59:58
Yeah, thank you, chair. I mean, it's been partially covered because you talked about members’ scrutiny and you said that you were satisfied that was appropriate. 
But there was mention in one of the reports about the need to improve reporting to members. You know, in order to assist them with their scrutiny role. 
So I just wondered, can you just unpack that a little bit and tell us a bit more about where you were going with that? 

Helena Gray  1:00:23
Yes, so this is specifically highlighted in relation to the reporting on the change programme, so how that's reported to elected members and the public is through the annual budget papers and annual reports, the policy and resources committee and the audit scrutiny committee. 
What the auditors have highlighted is that the reporting largely focuses on the financial information and the risk, and I think, as we've already touched upon, that there's scope to improve how it captures the non-financial benefits. Again, I'd highlight that we know that actually the non-financial side is hard to calculate as well, and Angus are not alone in this.
But more generally, auditors haven't highlighted any concerns about the level and effectiveness of member scrutiny. I think it was just in relation to that specific point. And that scrutiny is robust, that there are workshops for members in technical areas where required. So there aren’t wider concerns. 

Malcolm Bell
That's helpful. Thank you.

Jo Armstrong
Any other questions? Jennifer.

Jennifer Henderson  1:01:36
I just wanted to pick up, Helena, please, on the senior management restructure, because I noticed it referred to in your report. And I was just wondering if we've got any more information about what the rationale was for that, because I think we've commented, obviously, the senior management clearly were, are doing a good job. So I wonder why you’d do a senior management restructure. And then, were there any costs involved and were there any anticipated savings from that structure? So if you can just shed a little bit more light on that, that would be really helpful. 

Helena Gray
Yeah, I’ll bring in the team to chat through the rationale for that.

Pauline Gillen  1:02:11
Yes, so, so you're right in saying that we've not identified any issues with leadership or management in previous years, so that wasn’t the motivation for the restructure. 
A couple of years ago, there was a change in chief executive. There was also a deputy chief executive who retired, resigned, and they took the opportunity just to reflect on what the current senior leadership structure looked like, which I think is always good practice to do that, just to make sure it's fit for purpose. 
They recognised it gave them the opportunity to enhance strategic leadership and just create a bit of additional resilience. Underneath the Chief Executive they’ve created two assistant chief executive posts, one governance related and one operations related. 
So that's only been embedded since late last year. So, we'll report on how that's working as part of 25/26 audit. It also feeds into some of the concerns coming through in our workforce thematic about succession planning, about the age profile of the council, particularly those in senior leadership, so it will help them just think about what the future professional leadership team is. 
In terms of savings, I think, I can't remember the amounts, not huge amounts, but I think there were some anticipated savings from the structure. I want to say about in the region of 60 to 70,000 pounds, so not huge amounts, but certainly something that's in there.

Jennifer Henderson
But also reassuring, I guess, to understand that that restructure hasn't put in place a management team that's costing more. So it's a sort of they've achieved something around succession planning and resilience, but within the same envelope of spend. So that's helpful. Thank you.

Jo Armstrong  1:04:06
OK so that takes us onto a slightly more...
Unclassifiable areas. Andrew, do you want to touch off on…? 

Andrew Burns
Thanks, Jo. I just had a brief question around workforce planning, but thanks, Helena, Pauline and Mark, for the suite of reports before us this morning. 
I started off this morning thinking this was a pretty good report for Angus Council. Having listened to the debate and all the responses you've given, I'm even more reassured that it's a very positive outcome for Angus. And I think in particular, I think Jennifer mentioned it earlier on, that officers and elected members should be commended for ensuring that all the previous best value recommendations and so on have pretty much been responded to. 
But, and there's always a but! But it's a small thing, but under workforce planning, I think section, paragraph 30-37 in the covering report, Helena. It does mention that there was one recommendation from a previous auditor’s report around a council-wide skills audit that was planned to commence, I think, this month. And I just wondered if there was any further update on whether that has commenced and if there was a timetable for it to come to conclusion.
I mean, if not, fine, but I just thought it would be worth asking. Thanks. 

Helena Gray  1:05:12
It's probably worth highlighting that the skills audit was something that the council had planned to do as part of their workforce plan. 
And then, as the thematic highlights, it wasn't carried out because they wanted to follow on from the work that the then new chief exec and elected members were doing around priorities and design. I think there might be a bit of an update in relation to digital in particular. 

Pauline Gillen  1:05:41
Yeah, so the first tranche of the skills audit will focus on digital. At the end of 24/25, the council approved a digital, two strategies, a digital and a data strategy. And included in that is, in phase one of the data strategy, is the intention to carry out a data skills audit across the council. 
Just recognising the fundamental importance that data and the people will take in delivering and transforming council services in the future. So just a recognition that that might be an area where, in common with other councils and other organisations, that data and digital skills might be an area where there is a gap just in terms of future-proofing the organisation for where it wants to go in its use of data and digital.
So that’s, I understand that’s starting this month. 

Andrew Burns
Thanks very much. That's all helpful. Thanks. Thanks, Chair.

Jo Armstrong
Any other questions not yet covered that people want to pick up? Angela. 

Angela Leitch  1:06:47
Can I just expand on what Andrew's asked? And I think it is hugely reassuring that the council's identified the need for a skills audit, but targeted so that it's not an organisation-wide one which can be hugely time-consuming. 
Are there other areas where the council feels that there might be gaps or future needs that need to be addressed that are further down the line?

Pauline Gillen  1:07:13
So, so even though we had a recommendation about doing the skills audit and it hasn't been done, I think it's worth saying that it's not, they're not operating in a vacuum. So that at service level, departments, they will have knowledge and understanding of the skills that they have and the skills that they need. I think our point was more about an overarching council-wide skills audit and working towards the future. 
So I wouldn't want it to seem as if the departments don't know what skills they have and what skills they need because they do and that’s an ongoing part of the development of service plans. But I think it's just about having a wider and
perhaps more strategic picture and a bit more of a forward-looking picture, that that's the bit that's missing. And they've identified digital as part of their data and digital strategies as a key area. So it makes sense that that would be the first area that they would focus on, given that so much of their transformation strategy will fall out with data and digital.
We're not sure which will be the next areas and what the rest of the skills audit will look like. I think once the digital piece is done, it might give them the lessons learned for how they roll it out across services. So we're confident that at service levels, you know, what skills they have and what skills they need. But just about that overarching council-wide picture that’s missing, and how they report that and how it fits into decision-making.

Angela Leitch
I think I would support the pragmatic approach to that and take it on a stage, a theme, thematic basis as they go through. Thank you.

Malcolm Bell  1:08:52
Thanks again, Chair. IT. The recommendation … assess the assurance over third-party IT systems was, remained unimplemented at the time of the AAR. I wondered what progress has been made on that, and are there any undue risks to the council by the delay. 

Helena Gray
So again, the team might have more to add to this, but just in terms of that internal audit action. I think a revised timeline was prepared in March 2025, setting out the key steps to take place during June to December. I don't know if we've got an, if we’ve got an update on that. 
Mark Laird  1:09:33
Yeah, yeah, there is an update to that. We’ll of course report on it in September in our annual report as part of our follow-up, but from the work undertaken so far, we understand that the council are aware. They do, they do receive assurance reports from the service organisations for their cloud-based systems, and that they've not identified any issues from these. However, it's an informal process at the moment. So what we're looking for is that that's formalised and recorded. So that there’s more of an audit trail, as to what's happened and what assurance has been taken from that. So again, we'll follow this up in report in our annual report, but that's our understanding at the moment.

Helena Gray
And I think it's probably also worth noting that the council audit and scrutiny committee did consider the lessons learned from the recent section 102 on the cyber-attack.

Malcolm Bell
Yes. Thank you. 

Jo Armstrong
Carol. 

Carol Evans  1:10:25
… It's slightly operational, but it struck me when I was reading the audit report that there seemed to be, albeit quite small, more financial adjustments than I've seen in other reports. Normally there's one or two, but there seemed to be a lot. And I was just, is that down to new financial people? I mean, just to get an idea of why so many adjustments, it did seem way more than we’re used to. 

Helena Gray
I'll bring in the team to talk about the technical detail of the audit adjustments, but I think at a headline level, I don't think you were highlighting that these caused any concerns about the capacity of the finance team, but you might want to say a bit more about that. 

Pauline Gillen  1:11:05
Yeah, yeah, that's right. We don't have any concerns, but you're right to highlight, there certainly were more in terms of value and number of adjustments to the accounts last year. A couple of reasons, some of it was just down to, so there were specific issues with the spreadsheets used to generate the group accounts and consolidation adjustments. Just human error and a bit of oversight on certain things, so that resulted in a number of different… often the issue when you're using spreadsheets, they're prone to human error. So there were some issues there. 
There was also some errors in the evaluation of council dwellings, which I appreciate takes up quite a big bit in the report, but only, sometimes you have to put a lot of words in to explain something that's relatively straightforward. So we weren't concerned with that, but again, with just some incorrect figures being used in the working papers. 
And you’ll see that we've got an action plan recommendation for management just to consider the accuracy and completeness, and perhaps improve the review of working papers before the accounts are produced for audit. 
Also to point out, there was the implementation of a new accounting standard in relation to leases last year across the local government sector. And it's been rolled out in health and central government in previous years, and every year, first year of the rollout, it results in adjustments to the accounts. So Angus are not unique in that, and it's just a bit of a learning curve in year one. 
So nothing that we're concerned about in terms of quality of the accounts or the capability or capacity of the finance team. 

Carol Evans 
Reassuring, thank you.

Jo Armstrong  1:12:46
Thanks Carol. 
Thanks all. I think we’ve had a good, a good go at the BV report. Thank you all for your contributions this morning and we will consider in private how we then move forward, but thank you again.
That takes us to item 6.
It's the local government policy update. Over to you, Joe. 

Joe Chapman  1:13:12
Thanks very much, Chair.
Of course, the election remains kind of the big story over the past month. We're now in the kind of immediate period, the Parliament is sort of setting itself up again. We have MSPs, they’ve been taking the oath this morning. Presiding Officer will be elected later. First Minister will be elected on Tuesday next week. And we're expecting the Cabinet Secretary and Minister appointments to follow later in the week next week, so around about this time next week. And the committees then will be determined and formed next month. And for the first time, the conveners of those committees will be elected by MSPs. 
In terms of the election results and implications, I'm sure everyone's very familiar by now with the, with the results themselves. A lot of new MSPs, we have six parties, not five, most of which are quite evenly matched. It's quite a, therefore quite a divided Parliament. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out. There's been some discussion recently since the election around the sort of large Scottish budget gap that is going to be faced by the government over the next few years that the Scottish Government has set out in its own medium term financial strategy, that wasn't really tackled, it was barely mentioned really during the campaign. So interesting to see how that plays out. Of course, we have the SNP as the largest party and therefore,
the kind of direction of travel, particularly in terms of local government funding and the approach to that is going to remain in the same, in the same direction.
In general manifesto policies will be mostly as set out in the briefing that I provided to members before the election, albeit we might see that the SNP may need to work with other parties to get support that they need to pass legislation. 
So a lot still to happen, some of it quite soon. And that's really all I wanted to update on in terms of updates since the report was produced. I'm happy to take any questions on anything that's in the report. 

Jo Armstrong  1:15:14
Joe, really, again, really comprehensive report, I know it goes to people more than outside of the Commission too, so I think it's a helpful reminder for everybody that we're looking at a wide array of issues like and areas of interest, I think. 
Questions from…?
Can I perhaps then preempt a little bit. Item 13 talks about the Argyll and Bute Council's decision about a new school and the implications for that would be that there might be more money coming forward, allow them to deal with the challenge or the desire not to have the school built, but they were… Is that a real question or is that just a, a wishful thinking that they might follow what happened in Barra and Vatersay and the Western Isles.

Joe Chapman  1:16:00
Difficult to say. I think it's clear that the community still feels strongly about that decision and both the decision that was reached and how it was reached, despite the court of Session decision. They've obviously then seen the case of the Barra campus being removed from the LEIP, which is the, one of the main constraints on the council in terms of the decision that they were able to make. So I guess time will tell as to whether a similar approach ends up being taken with the Mull campus as well. 
I guess there's a sense that that other example has set a bit of a precedent. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out over the next few weeks and months.

Jo Armstrong
Derek, then Ruth.

Derek Yule  1:16:46
Thanks, Chair. I noticed Joe, slightly, immaculate timing, in the report you’ve quoted Angus Council's assistant chief executive. I notice he’s sitting in the back there. I'll not, I'll not revisit that, you’ll be pleased to…
I want a couple of questions really, totally unrelated.
One, Aberdeen City Council and their £14m spent on a fleet of hydrogen buses that’s now been written off. Now in one sense, we should applaud councils that do things differently and understand, but keen to understand when things go wrong. I just wonder… not necessarily expecting you to know the answers to that, but I just wonder if it’s something we would be looking at, at some point in the future to understand why the project, what it hoped to achieve originally, the degree of investment that the council has made, and then to see what lessons might be learned from that.
My second point was round about business rates. I noticed, I sort of saw there was a lot of press interest about business rates recently and your report quotes that deficit or write-off from Glasgow. So again, I wonder if it's something, Alison, maybe in terms of financial overview for future, we maybe need to look at it in more detail.

Jo Armstrong  1:18:13
It absolutely is, Derek.
I don’t know what lessons to be learned from the Aberdeen City, and I do agree with you Derek, we don’t want to be overly critical of somebody that’s trying something different. 
But I suspect, if I remember correctly, there’s a potential legal kind of issues from this, we might have to wait till that. But certainly we can ask, I suspect, we could write to the council and ask them what lessons have they learned from this. More for the benefit of the sector as a whole, I think. 

Joe Chapman  1:18:44
As a general point, we're now working with colleagues in performance audit and best value to kind of note the things that come out of these reports, which Commission members are interested in, so that they're kind of on a list for future consideration, so we’ll definitely note those points. 
I think with the Aberdeen case, it's worth noting that it's part of a kind of broader project around the hydrogen hub, which I believe is still progressing in some form, it's just the use of the hydrogen buses is the thing that they've pulled back from. I guess it's always that difficult decision where you realise that you’ve started to invest in something that's maybe now no longer the best option. Do you keep progressing with that or do you sort of take the hit and stop and that's obviously the decision they've reached on that.

Jo Armstrong
Ruth.

Ruth Macleod  1:19:26
That was actually what I was going to ask about, Aberdeen City Council and also Glasgow City Council, both two quite significant kind of issues in terms of, hopefully we will be following up with them about lessons learned and particularly on the kind of EV versus hydrogen approach, that, that we want to see councils making good decisions and that is just, it's quite tough reading from a public perspective, something being scrapped when so much has been financially invested in it. 
So, but yeah, it's really helpful report as ever, Joe. There's so many things coming out of it, the Angus coverage as well, so it’s a very interesting read and a lot for us to kind of think about and hopefully stay abreast of as well.

Jo Armstrong  1:20:12
Any other questions for Joe?
That takes us to item 7.
This is the Chair's update, my update. We have a paper there outlining all the things I've been doing since we last, last met. 
I think the thing I want to, again for the record, put on the record was the outcome of the meeting that I and Malcolm had with the IJB at, Clackmannanshire and Stirling
IJB discussion given our 102 report that went out. 
So Malcolm and I had a constructive discussion following that meeting with the Chair, Vice Chair and Chief Officer of the Clackmannanshire and Stirling IJB on Tuesday this week. And we were joined by Stuart Kenny, the auditors. 
Although all three personnel have changed since the, all, actually, I should say that all the leaders of that group have changed. The vice chair that was is now the chair.
The view was taken that they did raise significant concerns about the gap in the statutory post, but were assured wrongly that they didn't have to fill that post. So I think that was something to be learned about the extent to which legal advice was the appropriate legal advice. But we were reassured, I think, that they had at least been discussing the issues.
The provision of legal advice therefore on this IJB has been reviewed and formalised and the Clackmannanshire Council's monitoring officer is now the key provider and the current IJB chief officer feels this is well supported.
We were assured also that the Chief Financial Officer is driving many improvements in relations to both governance and financial monitoring, which was appreciated by members. And the IJB accepts all of the findings, and will consider the report and take it formally to their June session. So it was a very, it was a reassuring session, which I think is important that we reflect on … issues, but they did feel like they partly covered themselves well by asking questions. It was the level of legal advice that they, that they got. So, again, assurance given. 
But happy to take any questions on any aspect on that. Malcolm is there anything else you want to add?

Malcolm Bell  1:22:27
No, Chair, I think you've covered it. I mean, you've covered all the points I'd noted, noted down. But I agree it was a very helpful session, and I think it's, they found themselves in a position that I think any number of similar boards could find themselves in, so it's something that's worth noting for all IJBs.

Jo Armstrong  1:22:49
Any other questions on…?
That takes us to item 8, which is any other public business. Does anybody have any other public business they wish to raise today?
On that basis then we will now close the public session.