Our review focused on the main reports councils use to help senior leaders monitor and manage their performance.

Councils put a lot of effort into producing these reports, which are often in the public domain. We did this review at all 22 councils in Wales. Councils deliver services to the public using public money. It is vital councils understand the impact of their activities and policies to know if they are using public money wisely and achieving what they set out to achieve.

Our findings were similar across most councils: that few councils were putting service user perspective information at the core of their reporting and reports tended to focus on outputs rather than outcomes. We have generally made the same recommendations, or variations of them to most councils:

• strengthening the performance information on the perspective of service users and outcomes
• strengthening data quality arrangements. 

Whilst this review was not about councils’ performance management arrangements as such, our findings raise fundamental questions about the effectiveness of those arrangements. It is difficult to see how some councils are managing performance effectively if they do not report information on outcomes and the perspective of service users.