NAFWC28/05 - Wales Programme for Improvement (Guidance for Local Authorities 2005)

Statutory background

The Local Government Act 19991 requires local authorities to:

• secure continuous improvement in the way in which they exercise their functions, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness;
• consult widely on how to do so, and report publicly on the outcome;
• conduct reviews of their functions;
• prepare a performance plan (which this guidance refers to as an improvement plan) for each financial year.

In 2002, the Welsh Assembly Government issued Circular 18/2002, which established the Wales Programme for Improvement (WPI) as a means of fulfilling these duties. That supplanted the previous guidance on best value for Welsh local authorities.

This new guidance in turn replaces that issued in 2002, which ceases to have effect. It applies to county and county borough councils, and National Park authorities, in Wales. The Assembly Government will issue guidance to fire and rescue authorities in Wales separately.

Some elements of this guidance are issued by the Welsh Assembly Government using the Assembly’s powers in sections 3, 5 and 6 of the 1999 Act, as delegated to the Minister for Finance, Local Government and Public Services. They thus have statutory force, and local authorities are thus under a duty to have regard to such guidance. The text notes specifically those elements of the guidance that are statutory.