Originally posted on Good Practice Exchange at The Wales Audit Office: Hazel Clatworthy and Matthew Gatehouse, Monmouthshire County Council, presented at a shared learning seminar on the Future Generations Act back in March, when the legislation hadn’t actually come into force. Their experience was based on their work as “early adopters” of the Act. Six…
Our latest report, Financial resilience of local authorities in Wales 2015-16, looks at how local authorities are addressing and managing reductions in public expenditure in Wales. Report author, Nick Selwyn, talks about the progress of local authorities in ensuring they have sound financial management arrangements to maintain the important services they provide across Wales which…
The Wales Audit Office’s Fflur Jones took auditing to another level by joining a Welsh ambulance crew for a recent night shift. In her blog Fflur shares both the things she learned from a night with the crew and also some observations of what others can learn from this most important of services. On Friday,…
Why do we attend events across the country? Our Communications Officer Megan Powell-Williams tells us more… Recently, I was speaking to friends over dinner and mentioned that I’d be working at the Royal Welsh Show in July. A few of them looked puzzled and questioned why the Wales Audit Office would need to exhibit at…
Originally posted on Good Practice Exchange at The Wales Audit Office:
North Wales What does good governance look like in the context of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act? Alan Morris looks at what the act means for Welsh public services and how the Good Practice Exchange’s seminar can help. Wales is beginning to demonstrate its ability…
‘Not much’ would have been my answer before Christmas, but Santa brought something that changed my mind. Alamein by Stephen Bungay (external link). A former management consultant turned historian, Bungay brings a fresh insight to history by applying modern management thinking. Nominally focused on the 1942 El Alamein battles (external link), the book is really the story…
It’s amazing to look back and see how far the NHS has come since the early days of surgery. Unfortunate souls that went under the knife in the Nineteenth Century could expect gruesome pain, rampant infections, generous blood loss and post-operative shock, and not very good odds on survival! Nowadays, nearly half a million people…
I’m a firm supporter of our publicly funded health service and would stand by my belief that if and when I or any of my family should need help, I would look to the NHS as the first point of call. After all, Aneurin Bevan created a health service which was free at the point…
Public service re-organisation is never far from conversation in Wales, particularly given the future mergers proposed for local government. One public body that has already dealt with a significant amount of change is Natural Resources Wales (NRW). The Welsh Government created NRW on 1 April 2013, replacing three legacy bodies – the Countryside Council for…
In the following blog post Mike Usher, reflecting on his recent speech at the Devolution Wales conference, looks at what’s next for Wales with devolution now in its teens. Mike looks back over the key audit findings of the last few years and addresses both the forward challenges we face and the requirement that brings…
David Jones, a member of our Financial Audit – Tech Team, was recently asked to speak at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy (CIPFA) Local Government Accounting Conference. He told us what he was there for… There are many ominous-sounding terms in auditing and accounting; risk management, scrutinise, accountability, measured, qualified opinion. But…
