Audit Commission brands Surrey Heath the worst council in Surrey

12.00.00am GMT Tue 21st Sep 2004

On Monday, the Audit Commission published the results of its Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) of Surrey Heath Borough Council. The Commission has awarded Surrey Heath a lower grading than any other district council in Surrey, with a performance rating that is in the bottom quartile for the South East region as a whole.

The Audit Commission has carried our a Comprehensive Performance Assessment of Surrey Heath Borough Council

The "Comprehensive Performance Assessment" is carried out by a team of inspectors from the Audit Commission, who assess the performance of a council in a comparable way to an Ofsted inspection at a school. The resulting assessment gives a general ranking of the council against its peers, indicating where performance is good and where it needs to improve. A council is graded as one of Excellent, Good, Fair or Weak. Surrey Heath was assigned the grade of "Fair". All other Surrey District Councils (as well as the County Council) were assessed as "Good" or "Excellent".

Whilst many strengths of the Council are praised in the 209 paragraphs of the Audit Commissions report, much of the report is devoted to scathing comments on a failure of the council's political leadership and senior management to set clear objectives, priorities and targets and then to monitor such targets to improve the quality and cost effectiveness of the services it offers. It paints a picture of a Council providing reasonable services on a day-to-day basis, but one that has not adapted to the changing needs of its community or trends in local government best practise.

A key criticism of the Council is of the lack of vision or overall purpose. The Audit Commission comments (identified with paragraph numbers from the Commission's report):

"The council's current corporate plan has no long term aims or vision for the borough and lacks measurable targets to monitor progress" (P108)

The unwillingness to identify and commit to targets at the highest level then translates into performance management weaknesses throughout the Council's departments. According to the Audit Commission:

"Target setting is weak at both corporate and service level…Services do not yet use performance information as an effective management tool to deliver improvement. For example, GOSE (Government Office for the South East) have assessed the council's housing strategy as well below average - with no targets, no measurable outcomes and no funding identified."(P58)

Other weaknesses affect the Council's ability to improve services. The Commission's report states:

"The council is not achieving improvements in some areas - performance has not improved in 8 (42%) of the council's BVPI's since 2001/2… Of these where progress to levels seen elsewhere is less evident, some areas are important in making the council more accessible for all people". (P83)

In particular, in the opinion of the Audit Commission's inspectors, the current organisation is not well suited to facing the current challenges:

"Learning and communication between related departments is not helped by the current organisational structure. This prevents the council from identifying opportunities for cross-cutting improvements that could benefit customers." (P108)

In response to the inspection, the Council has kick-started activities to bring its organisation and methods up to standard. In a programme initially budgeted at over £1.2m, it will restructure its organisation and implement a customer contact centre to provide a single point of contact for the Borough's residents.

Rosalyn Harper, Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson for Surrey Heath, said: " No national assessment process is going to be perfect, but these judgements are applied to all District Councils equally. The important thing now is for the Council to acknowledge the weaknesses identified by the Audit Commission, and move on in order to improve services to the residents of Surrey Heath."

David Whitcroft, Lib Dem Group Leader at Surrey Heath commented: "There is much good work done by individual employees at the Council, but the structural problems reported here will come as no surprise to anyone who knows this organisation. With the eye of central government upon them, Surrey Heath Borough Council is now starting a programme of long-overdue change, the main thrust of which we fully support. Unfortunately, the cosy tendency to avoid the setting of measurable targets and weak project management are already evident in the change programme."

In its closing comments, the Audit Commission itself notes: "The council has a high-level improvement plan which….addresses most of weaknesses identified in this report, with the exception of performance management." (P114, emphasis added).

Notes to Editors

1. The Audit Commission's Comprehensive Performance Assessment of Surrey Heath Borough Council can be found on the Audit Commission website at www.audit-commission.gov.uk.

2. The following comparative information for other Surrey Councils can also be found on this website:

Assessments have been carried out in the following councils:

Elmbridge Borough Council Excellent

Epsom and Ewell Borough Council Good

Guildford Borough Council Excellent

Mole Valley District Council Good

Reigate and Banstead Borough Council Good

Runnymede Borough Council Excellent

Spelthorne Borough Council Excellent

Surrey Heath Borough Council Fair

Tandridge District Council Good

Waverley Borough Council Good

Woking Borough Council Good

3. Further comments by the Audit Commission on the lack of vision or overall purpose:

"The local community and its partners have not been effectively engaged in helping develop the council's plans". (P112)

"Council objectives are not specific and lack local context. The Council has not set targets for many of its objectives….There is limited understanding or ownership by councillors and partners"(P25)

"The delivery of "core" services is the Council's overriding priority, but the self-assessment and Corporate Plan do not articulate what these are or which ones need most improvement." (P34)

4. Further comments by the Audit Commission on performance management weaknesses:

"The council … cannot be sure that value for money is delivered consistently across all its services because of weaknesses in performance management" (P62)

"…a number of the council's key plans such as the leisure and cultural, risk management, CRDP, and housing strategies do not contain SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) action plans and future funding sources are not identified. Without clear milestones, the council is not well placed to measure and assess progress and take action in response to changing local and national priorities". (P108)

"The council does not know if it is improving its effectiveness in cross-cutting areas such as community safety and economic and social well-being as there are no performance management mechanisms in place to measure this". (P83)

"The Council has no robust data to ensure that it uses partnerships effectively and efficiently to deliver services. It has no information on the number and types of partnerships it is involved in, the council's contribution in staff time and what partnerships have achieved". (P104)

5. Other comments by the Audit Commission on weaknesses related to performance management:

"There is a lack of effective performance management to deliver future plans. There is no corporate structure to ensure future plans are regularly assessed and kept up to date. Opportunities are being missed to align related plans in order to save resources and provide a more cohesive delivery of services". (P110)

"The council has been poor at addressing risk". (P61)

"A further weakness is the lack of effective project management to deliver future plans". (P110)

"The council is not maximising the benefits of Section 106 planning agreements [contributions by developers to fund community improvements]. Agreements are not closely monitored and there are no processes to ensure that the council receives contributions on time or that these optimise benefits for the community". (P95)

6. Further comments by the Audit Commission on organisation at Surrey Heath Borough Council:

"The council's organisational structure at the time of the inspection restricts its capacity to take a strategic approach to using resources effectively. Whilst some good inter departmental working has been seen, the extent of sharing information on for example housing issues has been limited when that information is located in different parts of the council." (P53)