The Conservative group on Moray council has responded to the publication of the Best Value report into Moray Council, carried out at the end of 2019, by Audit Scotland. The Best Value report is a major report which looks at how the council is performing in all the different departments.
Commenting on the report is leader of the Conservative group Cllr Tim Eagle; “This is a very significant report which, unfortunately, can hardly be called good reading. It is critical of many of the service areas in Moray and, worryingly, that there has been a significant reduction in performance over the years with Moray now one of the worst performing councils in Scotland."
“But why? Moray Council has lots of high quality staff, many of those I work with on a daily basis are passionate and caring about their role with a real determination to improve. What seems to prevent them is a lack of consistent and clear leadership and a lack of money."
"This report clearly shows that local authorities in Scotland have had their funding slashed by 7.6% over the last 6 years. This is at a time when there have been exponential rises in demand in key areas like health and social care and an ever growing list of new responsibilities imposed on us by the SNP Scottish Government without the necessary funding."
"As ever, Moray gets a very poor deal compared to favoured areas in the Central Belt."
“As the leader of the opposition is is right that I scrutinise what comes before the council and there will always be robust conversation between me and the heads of service at times. Taking education as an example there are times we have challenged the department on key results but that does not take away from the fact that we have an education department which is clearly understaffed and under-resourced."
“This is exactly what the report picks up on - that we are not matching our actions with our priorities”
“This report comes on the back of two SPSO reports absolutely critical of Moray Council. This is not about the strategic role councillors play but reflects on the operational leadership in place. This has to be discussed very seriously if we are to move Moray forward in a positive direction. This is the third strike, as councillor we need to decide what that means."
Further commenting is Cllr Frank Brown (Elgin North); “Every time reports have come to the council on educational attainment and performance reporting the Conservative group and I have pressured for more detail, only to find we are simply ignored by people who don’t seem to understand that our role is to challenge on behalf of our constituents."
“We have always felt there was a lack of clarity on how we match our spend to our priorities, but also how we ensure we use the performance reports to drive forward improvement. The reality is we have not been doing this given we are dropping in a wide range of measures across the council. That simply is not good enough and corporate management must now ensure that in future we really drill into the detail so Moray is on a clear improvement journey.”
