Transcript – video on A&B Council BVAR report 
Hello. I’m Elma Murray, and I’m the Deputy Chair of the Accounts Commission for Scotland. 
I’m recording today’s message from my home, in line with current government guidelines. 
The Accounts Commission is the body charged with providing public assurance on councils, and related bodies, in respect of audit and their duty to provide Best Value. 
We work very closely with Audit Scotland and the Auditor General for Scotland.  
Today’s message concerns the publication of Argyll and Bute Council’s Best Value Assurance Report, and our findings from the audit work which was done prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. 
The last reports for Argyll and Bute Council were in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Since then, the Commission is very pleased to see that relationships between members and between members and officers have improved significantly. 
This is important because it supports leadership, setting clear direction for the council and how the council works with its partners. 
The council has good financial management systems in place and has achieved financial balance each year which provides a sound basis to work from. 
However, securing that balanced budget each year has mainly been achieved through efficiencies and savings. 
So the council now needs to consider how it will transform and redesign services to support a long term financial plan. This will be important too as the council faces a significant funding gap in future years, as well as a decline in population.   
 
These factors combined will create increased pressure on the council as the country emerges from the current health pandemic and faces into the impact of economic crisis. 
A matter of concern for the Commission is the council’s performance which remains low in a number of areas. And the pace of improvement is slower than for other councils. 
There is not enough evidence that the council is using its performance information to drive improvement or that it makes good use of self-evaluation, nor systematically monitors the impacts of its improvement work. 
Areas that are specifically mentioned in the report include economic development, environmental services and education and children’s services, which all show a mixed picture. 
The council recognises this and is working on making improvements. 
In the future the Commission will therefore be looking to see how this impacts on the council’s pace and depth of improvement. 

On a more positive note, the Commission recognises that Argyll and Bute Council has many resilient and self-sufficient communities, and that the council has a clear structure in place to work with its Community Planning Partners.  
The audit could see evidence that the council wants to improve how it works with its partners and is committed to improving its community engagement to support its communities to do more. 
The council’s approach to improving its partnership work will also be important to achieving its economic ambition of an economy which is diverse and thriving. 
So what happens now? 
Well what we are most interested in is how the council uses this report to help it focus on the improvements that it needs to make and the challenges it faces. 
The Accounts Commission therefore will continue to monitor its progress through our regular audit work. 
 
Thank you for listening.