Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021

91 Duty of principal council to report on its performance

(1) A principal council must, in respect of each financial year, make a report setting out its conclusions as to the extent to which it met the performance requirements during that financial year.

(2) In this section, a report under subsection (1) is referred to as a “self-assessment report”.

(3) A principal council’s self-assessment report must set out any actions the council intends to take, and any actions it has already taken, with a view to increasing the extent to which it will meet the performance requirements in the financial year following the financial year to which the report relates.

(4) A self-assessment report (other than a principal council’s first self-assessment report) must include the council’s conclusions as to the extent to which any actions included by virtue of subsection (3) in the council’s preceding report increased the extent to which the council met the performance requirements in the financial year to which the self-assessment report relates.

(5) In reaching the conclusions in its self-assessment report a council must take into account the views of the persons mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (d) of section 90 (whether those views were obtained under section 90 or otherwise) about the extent to which the council met the performance requirements during the financial year to which the report relates.

(6) The council must make a draft of its self-assessment report available to its governance and audit committee.

(7) The governance and audit committee must review the draft report and may make recommendations for changes to the conclusions, or to anything included by virtue of subsection (3), in the draft.

(8) If the council does not make a change recommended by the governance and audit committee under subsection (7), the council must set out in the report the recommendation and the reasons why it did not make the change.

(9) The council must make a self-assessment report in respect of a financial year as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of that financial year.

(10) Before the end of the period of four weeks beginning with the day on which the council makes the report the council must—

(a) publish the report,

(b) make the report available to the council’s governance and audit committee, and

(c) send the report to—

(i) the Auditor General for Wales,

(ii) Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales, and

(iii) the Welsh Ministers.

(11) A council may publish its self-assessment report in respect of a financial year and its report under paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (anaw 2) (progress in meeting well-being objectives) in respect of the same financial year in the same document.