Ceredigion County Council has blamed the authority’s “ineffective communication” with residents and partners on “significant negative local press” and said it is “actively working to improve”.

A report in January by an independent panel of assessors commissioned by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) said that Ceredigion is a “well run” council but has had “ineffective communication across the authority particularly with partners and residents”.

The assessment, which made a number of recommendations on areas of improvement, followed a Ceredigion County Council self-assessment of its own performance which found the performance of the authority was “excellent.”

The WLGA commissioned assessment was presented to the January meeting of the council’s Cabinet, with, under legislation, the council required to prepare a response, members of the Cabinet heard during a meeting on 6 May.

While the assessment was seen as an overall positive for the council, it did include eight areas for improvement, including the “recurring theme of ineffective communication across the authority particularly with partners and residents and the effectiveness of Clic”; “an urgent need for the council to revisit whether their current strategy for social work recruitment is effective and to explore alternatives”; and “taking steps to address a “disconnect between backbench members and the executive/senior leadership teams.”

The assessment also says that the “relationships between scrutiny function and the executive needs to be further developed”.

In a Cabinet report, Ceredigion County Council said it “welcomes the Panel Performance Assessment Report and accepts the areas for improvement identified by the Panel and accepts their recommendations.”

On the recommendation on the council’s ‘ineffective communication’ and issues with resident contact services, the council’s response says “we recognise these challenges considering significant negative local press and have been actively working to improve external communication.”

“A corporate e-newsletter and an engagement e- newsletter have been distributed to citizens that have registered to receive them.

“The number of people registered to receive both newsletters is increasing every quarter.”

The council also said there were historic issues with the Clic software, with the issue “greatly improved”.

“Some of the recurring themes identified by the assessment regarding our Clic software relate to historic issues, many of which have been recently resolved or are active projects,” the council said. “However, this is a large area of work which the Council will continue to develop.”

Council leader Cllr Bryan Davies told members: “We have to take every opportunity to sing our own praises really.

“We accept the report and comments.

“Ceredigion County Council is a council that is run well.

He conceded there were areas of improvement, including a need for better contact with the public.

Chief Executive Eifion Evans thanked members for “an opportunity to sing the praises” of the authority.

“We have had quite a challenging year-and-a-half; we are one of the first authorities that has been through this process, it’s testament to how we work as a team in Ceredigion, if there’s any way we can improve we will do our best to do that,” he said.