Council's Annual Report 2022-2023

How we measure the success of our Well-being Objectives

Measuring Progress

The Well-being Future Generations Act promotes a shift in focus from service productivity to all public bodies working together to progress outcomes that improves the quality of life of citizens and communities, both now and in the future.

This requires us to look at a range of data and evidence to build as comprehensive a picture as possible of our progress both in terms of trends over time and in relation to how we compare with other local authorities in Wales.

For us to do this effectively we have developed a data suite of indicators and measures which brings together a wide range of different sources, allowing us to reflect on the evidence available to us in the round. The range of data covers the following:

• Population Indicators: In the main these include publicly available data that have been identified to develop an understanding of trends and Carmarthenshire’s position relative to the other local authorities in Wales. Sources include (but are not limited to); National Survey for Wales, Annual Population Survey, Public Health Wales, Welsh Government, Department for Work and Pensions.
• Performance Measures: Inclusive of statutory returns, internal Council measures and primary intelligence in the form of consultation findings that we utilise to measure and monitor performance on a regular basis. These are the direct responsibility of the Council.

Primary Intelligence – Consultation Findings

Following the Local Elections in May 2022 we set out to understand how residents, Council staff, businesses and Trade Unions felt about the Council’s performance. Whilst this meets the statutory obligations placed on us through the Local Government and Elections Act it was also an opportunity to gain views (predominantly from residents and businesses) on a number of wider key policy issues such as: the climate and nature emergencies, poverty, education, community safety, the Welsh language and mental health and well-being.

This primary intelligence has been invaluable and when considered as part of a wider suite of measures they will be an important indicator of our performance, with results for 2022 acting as a baseline on which we will monitor performance in the coming years. This is indicative of our commitment to meeting our well-being objectives with residents, service users, our business community and staff at the forefront of everything that we do.

Throughout this report the consultation findings are depicted by an average index score (AIS). This score is a weighted average and will allow for the easy comparison between results year on year. A key is provided below for reference with more information on how AIS’s are calculated available in Appendix 6.

AIS Key:
• A score below 0 indicates overall disagreement;
• A score between 0 and 1 indicates overall agreement, and
• A score between 1 and 2 indicates overall strong agreement.

Regulatory Verdict

During the year our regulators issued a number of reports, and these are listed in Appendix 3.

This Annual Report looks at a wide range of evidence to make a self-assessment of how we are performing.