Published: Thursday, 5th March, 2009 5:28pm

Wokingham council standards slipping - Audit Commission

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THE biggest annual audit of council performance has painted a very mixed picture.

The comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) brings together reports by the Audit Commission, Ofsted, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and other agencies to give an overall star rating for councils on a zero-four scale.

Of the local authorities, West Berkshire has been judged the best. It has kept its three-star ranking from last year and has been judged to be "improving strongly", the best of four possible measures, with both its adult social care and general environment judged four out of four.

Reading has also stayed a three star council, the same as last year, but is improving only "adequately". It has been dragged down by average, two-star scores on children and young people, adult social care and culture.

Wokingham has the worst result, falling from three star to two star and improving "adequately", with both its children and young people and culture ratings at two star and an average corporate assessment score which measures how effectively the council delivers services.

The CPA is being replaced next year by a new monitoring system, the comprehensive area assessment.

RESPONSES TO READING'S CPA SCORE

Reading Borough Council spokesman Oscar Mortali said: "Inspectors praised the council for using its resources cost-effectively and also acknowledged significant improvements have been made over the last year to priority services including community safety, public transport and recycling.

"As highlighted in December's Education and Children's Services Annual Performance Assessment (APA) report and Ofsted's Joint Area Review (JAR) results in January, weaknesses in child protection are listed in the or Strategy and PerformanceCPA report, but assessors also acknowledge these are now being addressed.

"Inspectors also recognised improvements made in the area of children and young people, including raising educational attainment which has seen Reading score the highest in the country for both average pupil result and average result per A Level entry. GCSE results now also well above the national average.

"On the environmental front, assessors found the amount of waste recycled or composted was amongst the best nationally, with recycling rates above average and the cost of waste collection services to the Reading council tax payer below average."

Reading Borough Council Leader Jo Lovelock said: "This has been a year of considerable upheaval within the council, with a change of Chief Executive and the ‘no overall control' political situation. It is therefore very encouraging that the Council has retained its three-star rating. However, I'm never complacent and there are areas which, while now going in the right direction, such as child protection, need further improvement."

Chief Executive Michael Coughlin added: "This is a strong validation of the effort and commitment of the council to providing quality services and value for money to the people of Reading. Our strengths are obvious and we know what we need to improve - and are doing so."

But Lib Dem group leader Cllr Gareth Epps said: "Reading Borough Council is now moving backwards under Labour control. It has been marked down on public satisfaction on clean streets, failure to tackle empty homes - despite Liberal Democrat pressure - and a worsening performance in culture and sport and child protection."

RESPONSES TO WOKINGHAM'S CPA SCORE

Council leader Cllr David Lee said: "This is a much harder test of our performance and it confirms much of what we already know and are taking action on. Indeed, whilst we are not happy to have lost a star, it is important to realise that this is mainly the result of the judgement on our safeguarding services for children - an issue which we have already identified and are working hard to sort out. We have a comprehensive action plan in place to put things right and are investing some £12m into safeguarding services.

"I am pleased our services for vulnerable adults have improved. Indeed, the Commission for Social Care Inspection gave the council's adult services a ‘good' two star rating in its 2008 annual performance review and judged it to have ‘promising' capacity to improve - in 2007 the service received one star and was rated as having uncertain capacity to improve. And we are hoping for a very positive outcome from a recent review into our home (domiciliary) care to be announced later this month. So good news there."

"And what is really important to remember is that our investment into children's services and community care has increased by £14m in the last five years. This is against a background of severe under-funding from central government, which has seen the percentage of services paid for by local taxpayers increase to 80% against a national average for unitary councils of 50%.

"I recognise and accept the Audit Commission's assessment of where we need to demonstrate further improvement and we will ensure that we focus even more strongly on this over the coming year. They also identified what we are strong at and I'm pleased that these independent assessors recognised the high standard of services in these areas as I know the effort that our staff and councillors put into providing the best possible services for our residents."

Graham Ebers, acting chief executive, said: "The Audit Commission highlights what we have achieved in recent years and acknowledges that we are continuing to improve. We have some very highly performing services such as education, waste collection and planning and 34% of our services, as measured by performance indicators, are ranked in the top 25% across the country. Many services we provide are consistently above minimum standards and, although our rate of improvement has slowed and our star rating isn't as high as we would have liked it to be, we are still generally improving and from an already high base."

But leader of the opposition Lib Dems, Cllr Prue Bray said: "This is a terrible indictment of how the Conservative-led council has failed its residents. This is one of the few councils in the country that is actually going backwards rather than improving.

"The Tories only have themselves to blame for this dire result. This is another wake-up call to get their act together. How many wake-up calls do they need before they take action to put things right?"

RESPONSES TO WEST BERKSHIRE'S CPA SCORE

Council member for strategy and performance, Anthony Stansfeld, said: "I am pleased that this report recognises the council's continuing efforts to improve.

"It is especially good that areas such as waste which were identified as weaknesses in the last report have been highlighted as performing strongly this time.

"This is as a result of the introduction of the new integrated waste contract which as seen recycling rates improve significantly across the district."

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