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ACCOUNTS COMMISSION FOR SCOTLAND WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE COUNCIL BEST VALUE AUDIT REPORT PUBLIC HEARING held at Clydebank Town Hall, 49 Dumbarton Road Clydebank, G81 1TX on Wednesday, 29th November 2006 and Thursday, 30th November 2006 - - - - - - - - - - - Before: MR ALASTAIR MacNISH (in the Chair) PROFESSOR JOHN BAILLIE MS JEAN COUPER MR KEITH GEDDES MR IAIN ROBERTSON In attendance: MR BILL MAGEE - Secretary to the Accounts Commission - - - - - - - - - - - Transcribed by Ubiqus/Harry Counsell Cliffords Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1LD Telephone 0207 269 0370 - - - - - - - - - - - COMPLETE PROCEEDINGS - - - - - - - - - - - 1 1 Wednesday, 29th November 2006 2 3 MORNING SESSION 4 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am 6 Alastair MacNish and I am Chair of the Accounts 7 Commission. I would like to begin by going through the 8 procedure which will be followed today. Just before I 9 do, could I ask everyone to turn off any mobile phones 10 that they have. Also, there will be no fire drills this 11 morning, so if the fire alarm goes off it is for real; 12 the fire exits are at the back, so women and children 13 first; I do not know if there is another way out for 14 us, but it is through that back door there if the fire 15 alarm goes off. 16 This is a formal meeting of the Accounts Commission 17 for Scotland under section 103 of the Local Government 18 (Scotland) Act 1973. This is a hearing in respect of a 19 report by the Controller of Audit on the audit of best 20 value and community planning in West Dunbartonshire 21 Council. Copies of that report have been available on 22 Audit Scotland's website and there are copies available 23 for the public here today. 24 When the Accounts Commission receives a report by 25 the Controller of Audit it can do all or any of the 26 following or none of them: (i) direct the Controller 27 of Audit to carry out further investigations; (ii) hold 28 a hearing; or (iii) state its findings. The purpose of 29 this hearing is to allow the Commission to give 30 consideration to the Controller of Audit's report with a 31 view to making findings. Those findings may include 32 recommendations for action and may be directed to the 33 council or to Scottish ministers. If recommendations 34 are made to ministers they may include a recommendation 35 that a ministerial order be made requiring the council 36 to take any action specified in the order. We are 37 therefore here to listen to representations which will 38 be made and to ask questions that will help us reach our 39 findings. We are not here to operate as a court of law 40 and I will attempt to keep proceedings as informal and 2 1 as relaxed as is appropriate consistent with the 2 objective of allowing those who wish to express their 3 views to do so and to allow the Commission to obtain a 4 clear understanding of the issues. 5 Can I now introduce the members of the Commission, 6 and because they are facing away from me I might get 7 this wrong. On my extreme right is Iain Robertson; on 8 the left of Iain Robertson is Jean Couper; on my 9 extreme left is Keith Geddes, and on his right is John 10 Baillie. Bill Magee is Secretary to the Commission and 11 we may refer to him for advice during the hearing. A 12 note of the procedure which we will follow has been made 13 available to witnesses and copies are available in the 14 hall, and I notice quite a few have taken copies. 15 We intend to hear in the first instance from the 16 Controller of Audit and where appropriate the audit 17 team. We will then ask representatives of the council 18 to give evidence. In addition we have received a number 19 of requests from individuals to make representations 20 today. We have agreed to hear representations from the 21 following: 22 Caroline Gardner, Controller of Audit 23 Nikki Bridle, Assistant Director, Audit Scotland 24 Lesley McGiffen, Best Value Manager, Audit Scotland 25 David Pia, Director, Audit Scotland 26 Councillor Andrew White, Leader of West 27 Dunbartonshire Council 28 David McMillan, Chief Executive of West 29 Dunbartonshire Council 30 Tim Huntingford, ex Chief Executive of West 31 Dunbartonshire Council 32 Mike O'Donnell 33 We also have today: 34 Councillor Craig McLaughlin 35 Councillor Jim Bollan 36 Councillor Geoff Calvert 37 Councillor Dennis Brogan 38 Councillor Jim McCallum 3 1 John McFall MP 2 Jackie Baillie MSP 3 We intend to have those witnesses today. Tomorrow we 4 will hear from: 5 Duncan Borland, GMB Union 6 Tom Morrison, UNISON Union 7 Charlie McDonald, TGWU 8 Archie Thomson MBE 9 George McFarlane, Nancy Garvie and Edith Miller 10 from Rosshead Tenants and Residents Association 11 Rose Harvie, Silverton & Overtoun Community Council 12 We received a number of applications to be heard 13 from other individuals, some of them asking to give 14 evidence in private. We applied the following criteria: 15 relevance to the audit report; relevance to the 16 Commission's particular areas of interest in the report; 17 contribution to assisting the Commission in considering 18 the report; and representative, not individual. We 19 therefore declined to invite a number of people to give 20 evidence. Each witness or group of witnesses will be 21 given the opportunity to make an opening statement and 22 we have asked them to confine this to a maximum of 15 23 minutes. Members of the Commission will then ask 24 questions of the witness. At the conclusion of each 25 witness's evidence I will give them the opportunity to 26 say anything which they wish us to take into account. 27 We have been asked to take evidence under oath. 28 Although the Commission has the power to do this we do 29 not consider it necessary at this hearing as a 30 generality. We reserve the discretion to require 31 evidence on oath in the case of any particular witness 32 if we consider that necessary. We have also been asked 33 to take evidence in private. Our preference is to hear 34 evidence in public but the legislation does give us the 35 discretion to go into private session. We will listen 36 to any requests from witnesses in this connection and 37 give them consideration in the light of the reasons 38 which they offer. 4 1 The controller's report covers a wide variety of 2 issues. I must stress that the purpose of this hearing 3 is to allow the Commission to make findings on that 4 report. I intend to restrict all questions and evidence 5 to the matters raised in the report and I will not allow 6 the hearing to be drawn into other irrelevant areas. I 7 intend that this first session of the hearing will last 8 until 1 pm. We will reconvene after lunch and it is 9 likely that the hearing will be adjourned and reconvened 10 tomorrow morning at 10 am. At the conclusion of all the 11 proceedings I shall adjourn the hearing so that the 12 Commission can consider the controller of audit's report 13 in the light of what it has heard and make its findings 14 as expeditiously as possible. If it is necessary for 15 the hearing to be reconvened I shall do so, although I 16 most certainly obviously hope that this will not be 17 necessary. 18 I will now ask the first witness to come forward, 19 Caroline Gardner, controller of audit, to make her 20 statement; if I could ask you to introduce the rest of 21 your team as well. 22 MS GARDNER: Good morning, and thank you for the 23 opportunity to make an opening statement this morning. 24 I would like to start by introducing the team. First of 25 all, I am Caroline Gardner, and as the controller of 26 audit I have overall responsibility for the report that 27 you have in front of you. On my left is David Pia, who 28 is director of public reporting for local government; 29 Nikki Bridle on my right is the assistant director who 30 leads all of our best value work; and Lesley McGiffen 31 is the audit manager who led the audit of West 32 Dunbartonshire Council. Between us we hope we will be 33 able to answer any questions you may have. 34 You have got my report in front of you so I would 35 like to use this statement to focus on four things: the 36 aims of the audit process, the process that we have been 37 through with West Dunbartonshire Council to reach this 38 stage this morning, the areas of the report which are 5 1 disputed by the council, and the main judgments that the 2 team and I made about the council together with the 3 reasons for those judgments. 4 The purpose of the audit, first of all, is to assess 5 how well councils are meeting their statutory duty to 6 secure best value and to make available to the public na 7 overall judgment on how each council is managing its 8 business. I have now produced best value reports on 16 9 councils across Scotland which aim to produce a 10 comprehensive and balanced assessment based on judgments 11 in four key areas.
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