Wrexham County Borough Council

The committee reviewed the 2025-26 revenue outturn and the workforce monitoring report. Key themes were the council’s strong overall financial position despite acute pressure from statutory services, especially children’s social care, ALN and school budgets, and concerns about the loss of Welsh Government ALN consequential funding. Members also scrutinised workforce issues: rising sickness absence, low survey response and engagement, recruitment/retention pressures, the impact of hybrid working, and progress on Grow Our Own and apprenticeship pathways to reduce agency dependence.

The meeting focused mainly on the Welsh Education Strategic Plan (WESP), with officers reporting progress, capacity, staffing challenges, and falling pupil numbers affecting Welsh-medium targets. Members agreed to recommend a review of the WESP targets and to ask for more detailed benchmarking in future reports. Aside from education strategy, the meeting was procedural at the start and did not feature other clear procurement decisions.

The committee focused heavily on social care budget pressures, especially the rising cost of children’s services, agency use, recruitment and retention, and the strategic shift toward prevention and in-house provision. A second major theme was the Welsh Government’s removal of profit from children’s care, with discussion of sufficiency planning, market risks, foster care transitions, and the need for regular progress reporting through to 2030. The meeting also touched on AI use in social care and community-based prevention work such as social prescribing and parenting support.

The committee covered a positive domiciliary care inspection, but highlighted ongoing training and ICT equipment gaps that may need further resourcing. It approved the internal audit mandate and plan, noted the annual assurance and counter-fraud reports, and discussed fraud findings, asset checks, social care follow-up work, and resource use. Members also agreed to defer the 2024-25 accounts because of a lease/PFI valuation issue linked to the waste processing and recycling facility, and asked for the change programme update to be added to the work programme.

The committee spent most of the meeting scrutinising proposals to relocate the Cunliffe Day Service to Acton Resource Centre, with a revised co-location model intended to preserve community use while enabling housing redevelopment at the existing site. Members questioned consultation, feasibility, planning risk, funding, and whether phase two community extensions were genuinely deliverable. Officers and lead members said £750,000 had already been approved for the relocation/refit, with any extension subject to July Executive Board approval, planning permission, and further funding. The committee ultimately supported recommendations to continue engagement and receive further progress reports.

The Employment, Business and Investment Scrutiny Committee discussed the council’s Thrive social value digital tool rollout within the Business Investment Team, including its role in public procurement and investment decisions. The meeting covered staff recruitment to lead the initiative, potential wider use across internal and external projects, and a proposed all-member workshop with a follow-up report in 2027. Concrete social value figures from existing programmes were highlighted to illustrate impact.