Council services are stars in new tables (From Gazette Series)

Council services are stars in new tables

PEOPLE living in Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire are being well served by their top-tier councils, according to the government's latest performance tables.

Both Gloucestershire County Council and South Gloucestershire Council scored well in the annual comprehensive performance results (CPA) published by the Audit commission yesterday (Dec 15).

These are the first results under the new framework, CPA - The Harder Test, which reflects the new challenges facing councils, the public's rising expectations and the need to continue to stimulate improvement.

This year there is a new two-dimensional scoring scheme of "direction of travel" labels and star ratings. The direction of travel label shows how well a council is improving and the star rating judges its current overall performance on a scale from 0 to 4 stars.

Both Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire scored 3 stars for their overall performance and were judged to be improving well.

In the South West, eight of the region's 16 single tier and county councils were rated as improving well and five to be improving adequately.

Wiltshire County Council is the only authority to achieve the top rating of improving strongly and the Isles of Scilly the only one to be assessed as not improving adequately.

The Audit Commission compiles CPA in partnership with local government, appointed auditors, Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) and the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI).

CPA gives an overall rating by looking at a council's:

- use of resources; - work with children and young people; - adult social care arrangements; - payment and collection of benefits; - cultural services; - environment services; - housing services; and - corporate capacity to improve services.

PERFORMANCE TABLE FOR COUNCILS IN THE SOUTH WEST

Bath and North East Somerset Improving adequately 3 stars Bournemouth Improving adequately 3 stars Bristol Improving adequately 1 star Cornwall Subject to review 3 stars Devon Improving well 4 stars Dorset Improving well 3 stars Gloucestershire Improving well 3 stars Isles of Scilly Not improving adequately1 star North Somerset Improving well 2 stars Plymouth Improving adequately 2 stars Poole Improving well 3 stars Somerset Improving well 3 stars South Gloucestershire Improving well 3 stars Swindon Improving well 2 stars Torbay Improving adequately 2 stars Wiltshire Improving strongly 3 stars