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Council welcomes finance report

Published: 13/02/2017

Flintshire County Council has welcomed a report from the Wales Audit Office (WAO) on its sound financial planning. The review focussed on the following question: Do the council’s financial savings planning arrangements support financial resilience? And the answer to that is that the Council has a sound financial planning framework and it continues to strengthen its financial planning to better support future financial resilience. This is a positive and welcome result and shows how hard the Council has worked given the current financial climate, the reduced settlements to local authorities and the fact that Flintshire is a low-funded council per head compared to many other local authorities in Wales. In 2016-17, Flintshire received £185m from Welsh Government which represents £1,196 per person in the county, below the average for Wales and a real-terms reduction of 10.1% per head since 2013-14. Flintshire County Council’s Chief Executive, Colin Everett, said: “Our robust framework for financial planning, making savings and being prudent with our money – which has seen us through some tough financial years - has been recognised by the Wales Audit Office. It’s reassuring to know we are acknowledged by our national external auditor.” It would be unusual for the Auditor General not to suggest an area for improvement. In this case, only one area has been identified in the report – continuing to firm up our plans to make efficiencies well in advance of the financial year in which they fall.