More Grim News for the Surrey Heath Council Taxpayer

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 27th Jul 2009

Surrey Heath House, Camberley

Surrey Heath residents have received independent confirmation from the Audit Commission of the continuing poor service received from their Conservative-controlled council.

Each year, as part of its role to review performance and value for money across local government, the Audit Commission looks at Surrey Heath Borough Council and assesses its performance against both the Council's own plans and against the performance of other comparable councils. The annual report for 2007/2008 was published on 24th June and is now available on the Audit Commission website. Some parts of the report make grim reading for Surrey Heath residents.

When assessing the Council against its objective of "Delivering services efficiently, effectively and economically", The Audit Commission says:

"The Council can demonstrate that it has made some improvement against this objective through enhanced service performance in some priority areas. However, as described in previous paragraphs, achievement and comparative levels of performance are mixed.

• Planning services are improving but the key performance indicators that impact most on customers - time to determine applications - are either below average or worst performing compared to other councils.

• The waste collection and recycling service is performing well in terms of the cost to deliver the service and amount of waste collected, although actual recycling levels remain below average.

• Performance in the care of the environment, levels of litter and graffiti for example, is deteriorating and generally poor.

• The Council's benefits service is delivering an improved service for its customers in terms of time to process new claims and changes but accuracy in 2007/08 was poor."

The Audit Commission is particularly critical on environmental protection:

"Performance in the care of the environment is deteriorating and generally poor. The percentage of land littered to a significant or heavy extent is deteriorating and moved from above average to below average compared with other councils. The percentage of relevant land and highways from which unacceptable levels of graffiti are visible is deteriorating and has moved from below average to worst performing. The percentage of land from which unacceptable levels of fly-posting are visible has deteriorated since last year and moved from below average to worst performing. Resident satisfaction with cleanliness of public space has not been updated since 2006/07 when it was below average."

Elsewhere in the report, the Audit Commission, whilst allowing for special circumstances locally, remains critical of Surrey Heath's performance on Housing and especially on Affordable Housing. The current criticism follows previous criticism in reports released in February 2006 and January, 2008.

The Audit Commission's Annual Letter to Surrey Heath Borough Council published on 24th June 2009 can be found at http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk.