News

One council with a two-star social services department has been rated as “poor”, in the first-ever comprehensive performance assessment results published this week.

Overall, the CPA results rate 22 councils as excellent, 53 as good, 40 as fair, 22 as weak and 13 as poor.

But Kingston upon Hull finds itself in the lowest category, despite its good social services rating.

Given that the Audit Commission deems that poor councils “offer inadequate services and do not have the leadership and managerial capacity or focus to improve them”, this could give a misleading picture of Kingston upon Hull’s social services department, which is serving some adults and most children well and has promising prospects for improvement.

The other councils in the CPA poor category have zero- or one-star rated social services.

All the excellent authorities will benefit from the removal of ring fencing, a three-year holiday from most inspections and will not have to submit plans to the government.

They will also be free to spend Department of Health grant money outside of social services on other areas such as libraries. (News, page 6, 5 Dec)

The results show that the North East has the highest proportion of excellent councils, while Yorkshire and the Humber has the highest proportion of poor councils. 24 per cent of London Councils are rated as excellent.