London borough of Sutton 'performing strongly' says watchdog » Local Government » 24dash.com

Sutton Council is performing strongly, according to an independent report released on Tuesday by the Audit Commission.

The corporate assessment report shows that Sutton Council is performing strongly. As a result of its challenging ambitions for its diverse communities, sustained focus on service delivery, and exceptional partnership working, it has achieved significant and continuing improvements in performance.

Howard Simmons, Audit Commission senior manager, said: “Sutton Council is performing strongly. Strong leadership is provided at both political and managerial levels to address national, regional and local agendas. The Council responds very well to the needs of its communities. Through highly effective partnership working it is achieving its priorities and this is impacting positively on the quality of people’s lives. This is particularly evident in terms of tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, creating sustainable communities and delivery of high quality services.”

The inspectors identified a number of strengths including:

* The Council has a strong focus on meeting the needs and preferences of its residents and has the highest customer satisfaction rating in London (81 per cent).
* The Council’s ambitions are fully responsive to the needs of residents and are highly challenging in terms of target outcomes; its capacity to deliver these ambitions is good.
* An excellent sustained track record of partnership working has helped secure outstanding achievements against national and local priorities, continuing high service performance and greater efficiency.
* Highly effective partnership working with the Met Police has made Sutton one of the safest London boroughs, and one where crime and fear of crime is declining.
* There have been tangible results in delivering sustainable communities such as through the transformation of the Roundshaw Estate, which has led to significantly improved quality of life for local people through, for example, provision of better housing, reduced health inequalities, and reduced crime and anti social behaviour.
* The Council has achieved strong performance in delivering 'cleaner and greener' priorities - for example, by reducing its own resource consumption and high recycling performance.
* There has been excellent progress in increasing housing supply, including for vulnerable groups.
* The Council is effectively promoting sustainability through projects such as Smarter Travel Sutton.
* The Council achieves good outcomes for children and young people overall with some of the top exam results in the country.
* The Council has made a notable achievement in recruiting people with learning disabilities.

There are also areas for improvement such as the challenge of ensuring that all local authority homes meet national decency standards and a need to improve outcomes for looked after children.

To help the Council build on its success, the inspectors made the following recommendations:

* Although the Council has shown strong use of community engagement it could build on this to ensure that: funding delegated to local committees meet the needs of the whole community; individual needs of people with mental health problems are better met; and housing needs of BME communities are better met.
* The Council should improve its frameworks for delivering efficiency and use of the voluntary and community sector by developing its procurement and commissioning processes.
* The Council should ensure that the new economic development strategy includes local targets.

Copies of the report are available from the London Borough of Sutton or from the Audit Commission website at www.audit-commission.gov.uk/report