Councils getting better

As I was saying earlier this week, we've seen big improvements in local authority performance over the last decade.

This week, the Audit Commission published its 2007 Comprehensive Performance Assessments - which show that most of the 149 English single-tier and county councils are delivering a high level of services to local people. In fact, three-quarters are either "improving strongly" or "improving well". See this comment from  Tony Travers in The Times.

Some of the results are quite surprising. The top performing councils are in London and the North East - including Hackney and Lambeth, Gateshead and North Tyneside. Other results are less surprising - for example, Liverpool is the worst performer overall.

Strong council performance doesn't necessarily lead to strong economic performance, of course. Our Cities Outlook report shows that Hackney and Lambeth still perform badly on a number of economic indicators, like employment. And the North East is lagging well behind many other English regions. Only Liverpool seems to be experiencing the double whammy of having the worst performing council and relatively low economic performance.

Overall, though, this should encourage Whitehall to give more powers to cities. As Tony says: "Councils are now among the best performing parts of the public services. Surely this fact, combined with the defective nature of so many parts of Whitehall, suggests that the political parties should seriously consider a significant decentralisation of political power."

Comments

[Wyrdtimes]

English regions? Don't remember voting for them. I do however remember the people of the so called "north east" of England voting against English regions.

Some democracy eh?

[John Charlesworth]

Surely a start is needed by getting all Town/Parish Councils up to Quality Council status. A sort of reversal of the top down approach (bottom up I presume). This then permeates to District and City levels. I am still saddened by how many have mot reached this status.