The Chair of the National Assembly for Wales’s Public Accounts Committee, Nick Ramsay AM, has issued the following statement in response to the Wales Audit Office report, ‘Financial Management and Governance in Community Councils 2015-16’.
Mr Ramsay said:
“Community councils have an increasingly important part to play in the provision of public services in Wales as the tier of government closest to the communities they represent.
“They manage significant sums of public money and this will increase over the next few years. It is essential that these councils have robust and effective arrangements in place for financial management and governance.
“While many councils have good arrangements in place, the Auditor General’s report shows that there is still much work to do to raise standards of financial management and governance across the sector.
“I expect that the councils and their representative bodies will work together with the Welsh Government to understand and address the issues identified in the Auditor General’s report and to ensure that the necessary arrangements are put in place to support effective financial management by all community councils.”