BLAENAU Gwent council has vowed to ‘increase the pace’ on improving the way it is run after a Wales Audit Office report found council performance ‘mixed with big variances across different services’.

The Wales Audit Office (WAO) looked at the council's performance during 2012 and issued an annual improvement report in April.

Alan Morris from the Wales Audit Office presented the annual improvement report to councillors yesterday (Weds) afternoon.

He told them that while certain services had improved since the 2011 report others were still floundering, and that to see results it needs to increase the pace of change.

He said: “Social care is doing well, and there have been improvements in the processing of housing benefit, but education, economic development and regeneration are not doing well.”

The report found the authority is also improving its Welsh language services and services to help independent living, and is making good progress on the Works regeneration scheme.

He continued: “You have in some aspect made good progress – if you look at the The Works site and budget management, we can see you have turned that around.”

But auditors say long standing weaknesses in how corporate structures for managing improvements are applied limit how the authority assesses itself.

Mr Morris added the report highlights longstanding issues which are undermining good progress in the rest of the council.

He added: “We are seeing some changes but the pace of change is not sufficient. We will continue to monitor your progress and programme delivery, working closely with the council to help you and help inform citizens in how the council is being improved.”

Blaenau Gwent council leader Hedley McCarthy thanked the WAO for the ‘balanced’ report and said: “We are pleased you have acknowledged the positive work that is being done, particularly the progress at The Works site. We are also pleased you see the socio-economic problems this council face, but we accept we need to increase the pace of change, and we will work diligently to achieve this.”

Deputy leader Stephen Thomas said: “We have already applied for the WLGA to come in and conduct a peer review to address long term issues and the changes in leadership.

“We have to accept progress has somewhat stalled, so we are looking at external facilitators to help us get over these issues.”

The annual improvement report for 2011/12 found "long-standing cultural, performance and leadership problems, coupled with limited corporate capacity, have led to inconsistencies and weaknesses in how the council plans, organises and delivers better services for its citizens".

Blaenau Gwent escaped being taken into special measures in 2011 when the WAO said improvements were being made at the council, but warned then it was unlikely the council could sustain significant improvement without changes.