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Scrutiny improvement

Assurance and Improvement Plans

This page includes links to the individual assurance and improvement plans (AIPs) for each council. The AIPs give a description of the council’s context, including the challenges it faces and what it's trying to achieve.

The AIP then makes an assessment of the challenges likely to be faced by the council in achieving good outcomes for local people. The AIP also sets out any areas of concern about the way the council is run.

Using this information, we have drawn up a scrutiny plan showing what scrutiny activity we will undertake to make sure the council keeps on track with what it is trying to do and any improvements it needs to make.

The individual plans for each council can be downloaded in PDF format below.

What do we mean by scrutiny risk?

Our scrutiny plans are based on risk. Our risk assessment process is designed to identify where we think scrutiny activity will make the most difference in terms of helping councils to improve and providing assurance to the public.

Once the risk assessment has been made, we work out a scrutiny response tailored to suit the identified risk. This may be a full scale inspection of a service area, a best value audit, limited audit or inspection activity, or no scrutiny activity for a given period.

The scrutiny risks and responses are set out in the AIP for each council.

Our risk assessment does not identify all the risks facing councils in carrying out their day-to-day business. Councils themselves are responsible for identifying and managing those risks.

Assurance and improvements plans 2012-15

May 2012

The current Assurance and improvement plan (AIP) for each council can be downloaded below.

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Assurance and improvements plans 2011-14

May 2011

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Assurance and improvements plans 2010-13

July 2010

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