‘Damning’ Audit Wales report says council lacks systems to guarantee value for money

Lewis Smith, Local Democracy Reporter

A report from Audit Wales has said that a county borough council doesn’t have arrangements in place to consistently secure value for money when it comes to commissioning services.

The report was heard by Bridgend County Borough Council bosses at a governance and audit scrutiny committee in July 2025, following the audit which was published by the organisation in June.

Commissioning is the process by which a local council designs and sets up the services it wants to deliver either internally or by procuring an external supplier.

Rationale

Audit Wales said after looking at a small sample of services they felt that Bridgend County Borough Council did not have arrangements in place to “assure itself that it consistently secures value for money when it commissions services.”

A senior auditor said some of the main things they looked for was evidence that the council had a clear rationale for commissioning a service, with monitoring arrangements in place and a “comprehensive” options appraisal before it took place.

Other criteria included the consideration of balancing long and short term needs, as well as understanding the wider impacts and cost of commissioning with the ability to learn lessons.

They added that while they did find examples of these things in some of the reviewed services it wasn’t seen consistently across the board.

Following questions from members, officers pointed out that there had been evidence of good practice noted in the report, though accepted they needed to make sure this was consistent and standardised across all services.

‘Damning’ 

Councillor Martin Williams of Coity Higher said on the face of it the report was “damning” and cited a recent instance where the council decided to in-source grass-cutting services with little evidence on whether or not it offered value for money.

He also asked for more details on the council’s response to Audit Wales which addressed what the gaps were and what was being done to plug them in the next few months.

Officers said the authority had set out a number of actions it intended to take around commissioning which included producing a report on good practice, with directors bringing bi-annual reports to ensure they were on the same page.

It would also see them reviewing commissioning arrangements annually with the potential for a working group, a  policy being circulated to all staff, and training offered where necessary.

Councillor Simon Griffiths said he felt the issues found were more about consistency as opposed to clear evidence of an inability to show value for money, and supported requests to take the plans to further scrutiny.

Audit Wales said they had carried out constructive conversations with the authority over the issues and were satisfied that they were being addressed.

They added that a national review on all 22 Welsh councils would hopefully be released before the end of the year.