Agenda item

That the report be noted.

Members received an overview of the circulated report from Audit Wales.

Officers mentioned the report was a local government national study, not specific to Neath Port Talbot, but the recommendations apply to all local authorities in Wales.

Officers highlighted that all 22 councils were looked at a high level and the conclusions that were reached. Responsible bodies were yet to develop comprehensive plans that set out how the new and revised responsibilities introduced by the Building Safety Act will be addressed.

Resourcing issues make it unlikely that local authorities can successfully implement the new building safety regime or that services were fit for purpose. There was little evaluation of building control services across Wales and no national comprehensive system of building safety assurance.

Officers mentioned there were eight recommendations issued in the report, of those recommendations, four were for Welsh Government and four were for local authorities.

Officers mentioned that the first recommendation related to the developing of an action plan, and whilst there wasn’t a bespoke action plan in place, there was a lot of work that was going on in parallel in addition to systems in place which could essentially be pulled into an action plan.

Officers had reviewed the structure that Building Control has in place and were content that the structure was fit for purpose, albeit it was noted there were significant challenges with recruitment.

Officers highlighted the second recommendation that links to local authorities needing to review their financial management to ensure that the building control function is compliant with the regulations. Officers mentioned they regularly review the fee structures looking at hourly rates of Officers and the Council already publishes on an annual basis its financial statements.

The third recommendation related to local authorities needing to explore the need to potentially collaborate and to regionalise to strengthen that resilience in terms of the challenges that the profession has overall.

Officers mentioned Carmarthenshire Council has a team in place, which under service level agreements with authorities, who provide the planning service for minerals and waste which is a specialist function within the planning sphere. Moving forward it may be that local authorities will need to look at a similar potential regionalisation model as options to consider going forward.

Officers also explained that we are working with LABC in developing a model for cross boundary and collaborative working.

The fourth recommendation relates to the need for local authorities to continue to review their risk management processes and looking at particularly mitigation. Officers mentioned that risks were already captured within the directorate risk register. If it needed to escalate further, then the Council has a wider strategic risk register, which could be added to going forward.

The Chair asked in relation to the hourly rates situation with regards to financial management. Officers stated that it had not been possible to uplift the hourly rate due to efficiency savings within the section and on costs.

Members asked in relation to keeping up with the costs for people outside of public sector, could they be shared between councils.  Officers explained that all salaries were paid following a job evaluation.

Members asked in relation to the pay of the market rate, were the WLGA able to lobby Welsh Government.

Officers mentioned they were happy to raise this will members who sit on the WLGA.

In relation to the organisation response, Members asked when this would be completed. Officers indicated that they aimed to have an action plan in place by end of April 2025.

In relation to recommendation 8, Members asked whether officers were comfortable that they reflect the types of issues that have been flagged in the report as opposed to saying they were on the risk register. Officers explained that the risks were broadly covered on the corporate and the directorate risk register. Welsh Government has introduced Operational Standard Rules which sets out how each local authority Building Control departments should be operating and what standards officers need to meet, part of this is how the council deal with the risks.

Officers would be developing a more detailed risk register for Building Control, which will put the risks under more scrutiny, as part of ISO9001 accreditation and this would be reported back to Welsh Government and LABC. Officers explained someone on behalf of Welsh Government or LABC would audit the team annually on the risk register.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted