merrion street

The National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC)  published its fourth annual report covering the period 1^st January – 31^st December 2017.  The Commission was established in 2014 to independently oversee the local government sector by reviewing the financial and operational performance of bodies within its remit.

The Annual Report for 2017 was approved by the Board of NOAC at its March 2018 meeting. The report outlines NOAC’s work during 2017, mainly via 7 sub-groups. These groups, some of which are permanent and others which remain in place for the duration of their specific projects, are the Performance Indicators; Customer Survey; Financial Performance; Housing; Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs); Public Spending Code (PSC) and Programme Management Office (PMO) Projects sub-groups.  Work progressed in 2017 included the compilation of the 2016 Report on Local Authority Performance Indicators. A Good Practice Event was also held which provided an opportunity for local authorities to learn from each other and build on innovative approaches to service delivery. The Customer Survey Sub-Group engaged consultants and work commenced on a survey on local authority customer engagement.

Other work progressed in 2017 included the compilation of the 2016 composite Quality Assurance (QA) report for the local government sector as part of the requirements of the Public Spending Code (PSC). In May 2017 NOAC published a review of the performance by local authorities in managing and maintaining their stock of social housing.  The work, which commenced in 2015, focused both on how local authorities maintain the condition of their housing stock and the whole process of how they manage their housing stock portfolio.  This comprehensive report is summarised on pages 25 to 28 of the annual report and it is available on the website www.noac.ie along with all NOAC’s reports.

In commenting on the report, NOAC Chairman, Pat McLoughlin, said:

‘In 2017 NOAC commenced compiling profiles of. and meeting. each local authority individually.  The profiles are based primarily on material in our reports to date and meetings with the Chief Executives, but also include information provided by the authorities themselves outlining the particular context within which they each operate.  It is planned to progress and expand on this work in 2018.’

He recognised that the working relationship between the Local Government Audit Service (LGAS) and NOAC also continues to develop and strengthen. He explained that during 2017 NOAC again received substantial support and assistance from the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), particularly in the collection and compilation of data for the performance indicators report.  He expressed his gratitude to the Chief Executives, liaison officials and performance indicator coordinators of the 31 local authorities for complying with the various requests for information made by NOAC during 2017 and to the other bodies, agencies and Departments that supported NOAC in its work over the last year.

The document is now on the website @ http://noac.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NOAC-Annual-Report-2017.pdf

It is also linked under the Corporate Governance page of the site http://noac.ie/other-publications/corporate-governance/