The report notes that the cost of failure in governance and financial management is not only significant in terms of the cost of consultancy and legal services, but also in thousands of hours of time from many different public bodies when responding to the underlying issues.

But the biggest detrimental impact comes from how these issues can deflect an organisation from their core objectives and services to the public.

As financial and human resources become stretched, the risk of governance and/or other service failings increases. This is not just about systems and processes; it is also about behaviours and the importance of demonstrating a clear commitment to the Nolan principles of Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty, and Leadership.

Every time the public see the kind of behavioural and governance failures that Audit Wales have reported on, trust in those leading our public services is damaged. That in turn makes it harder to win public support where more radical changes need to be made.

This series of events includes the following themes: 

• Upping the bandwidth on digital transformation 
• Zeroing in on the sustainable development principle 
• Tackling Fraud and Error 
• The workforce of the future 
• The complex public service landscape 
• Putting value for money to the test 

Further details of these events will be available on our website shortly. We will send an email to our mailing list when booking is available. If you would like to be added to our mailing list for future updates, please email good.practice@audit.wales.

We will also be announcing more speakers closer to the event date, and it will be an opportunity to learn and share experiences with your peers.