b'Governance and accountability. While Kildare sustains the maintenance costs of Public confidence in our performance is essential. facilitating road access into the Greater DublinMaking accountability work involves governance Area, it is the case that with a large commutingstructures, transparency around expenditure and population that many businesses outside Kildaredecision making, information management,are benefitting from the Councils maintenance ofcompliant procurement and value for moneythe road network. In addition, other local oversight. This is crucial to reassure the publicauthorities benefit from the rates collected fromthat we are using public funds in a responsible, these businesses in their counties.targeted and effective way. This is more relevant since the introduction of LPT and in the context of In this situation while Kildare must pay to maintainthe recession which gave rise to greater scrutiny the road network facilitating businesses outsideof public spending generally. The Audit Committee the County it must also provide the social is responsible for oversight of relevant governance community infrastructure from our growing andpolicies and works closely with the Head ofdependent young population. This presents Internal Audit and Corporate Governance. significant pressures to our finances. Risk management is also key, with eachKildare residents are not benefitting department recording and monitoring risks overproportionately from a fair allocation of centrala range of key areas. Maximising our impact in funding based on comparative data. Kildare services and projects requires a whole ofCounty Council is seeking to maintain basic government collaborative approach. In this regard services in the midst of major population growththe Council are party to multiple Service Level while not being in receipt of a proportionate Agreements with other agencies and localallocation of funding from central government authorities. These SLAs define the roles of each based upon the indicators used to determineparty and the expected deliverables that drive the funding allocation to local authorities. delivery of service.In the context of the above the success of ourTo more closely monitor and manage performance Economic Strategy in attracting FDI, indigenousunder these SLAs the Council will develop anew investment, together with sustainingregister of SLAs in 2020. The Council willindigenous companies, will be crucial in order tocontinue to pursue opportunities forstrengthen our business community to offset anyefficiencies from shared services and sharedfuture challenges. These activities also strengthenprocurements such as those developed and our income streams and sustain services. co-ordinated through the sectors Programme Responsible financial management and actions Management Office, and the Office ofto leverage funding from central governmentGovernment Procurement (OGP).departments, EU schemes and other agencies are also essential to ensure robust funding to provideExtensive information on our public reporting of enabling infrastructure for our growing County. our performance is available in the section of the Plan on Implementation and Reporting. 35'