Best Value and service self assessments reports

Each year we report on Best Value, which is how we demonstrate good governance, improvement and how we are managing our resources well.

The statutory duty of Best Value was introduced in the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003. The audit of Best Value is a continuous process that forms part of the annual audit of every council.

Best Value is about more than good governance and managing resources effectively. It is also about a focus on:

• improvement
• change
• delivering services that improve the lives of local people

How the findings are reported

Findings are reported each year. Section 2 of Dumfries and Galloway Council Annual Audit Report (2022 to 2023) is on Best Value – Dumfries and Galloway Council Annual Audit Report.

In addition to the Best Value audit, auditors now report annually to the Commission on specific themes for all councils. The first theme was leadership focusing on both councillor and senior officers. You can read the findings on Dumfries and Galloway Council in the Leadership of the development of new local strategic priorities report.

Read the findings on the previous Best Value Audit in 2018.

Self assessment and continuous improvement

We want to be open about how we are doing as a council and how we plan to keep improving.  To help with this, we recently carried out self-assessments using the Public Service Improvement Framework (PSIF). PSIF is a well-known tool used across the public sector to understand what services are doing well and where they could improve.

These self assessment supports Best Value and meets the requirements of the Statutory Performance Information (SPI) Direction to publish self-evaluation outcomes.

Find summaries of each self assessment reports.