Audit Scotland and Accounts Commission
Statutory bodies who assist local authorities in making the most efficient and effective use of finances and resources. They are responsible for conducting the council's audit of best value and community planning and for monitoring the data within the annual Statutory Performance Indicators return.
Their role is to examine how we as a council manage our finances, our resources, promote Best Value and based on this publish annual information about our performance alongside other public sector organisations. They can and will make recommendations to us to ensure that we and other public sector bodies in Scotland are held to account for the proper, efficient and effective use of public funds.
Audit of Best Value
Councils' delivery of best value objectives in Scotland are checked via a national audit process. The Audit of Best Value began in 2004. East Renfrewshire Council's first audit took place in 2005 and an improvement plan was put in place to address identified issues. A copy of East Renfrewshire Council's Best Value Report is available.
Details of BV Audit reports for other councils can be found on the Audit Scotland website.
Assurance and improvement plans
The next phase of audits (referred to as BV2) aims to take a more streamlined approach to scrutiny based on areas of risk. Each year the Council receives an Assurance and Improvement Plan (AIP) prepared by external auditors which sets out the challenges the Council faces, any areas of concern and the level of external scrutiny activity that will take place over the next 3 years. The Council's AIP 2011-2014 is available.
Statutory performance indicators
All Councils in Scotland measure their performance according to a prescribed set of indicators from Audit Scotland, called SPIs or statutory performance indicators. These cover a wide range of service areas such as education, council tax collection, refuse collection, recycling, social work, roads and street lighting.
All Councils publish their SPIs by September of each year. This means that we can measure our performance against other Councils in Scotland. Copies of the latest information supplied are available along with the comparator report showing how we rank against other Scottish authorities.
Future reports from Audit Scotland and the Accounts will be added to this page.
