Hull outshone by its own two-star team

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

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

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

The Audit Commission says poor councils offer “inadequate services
and do not have the leadership and managerial capacity or focus to
improve them”.

But 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 social services on other areas such as libraries (news,
page 6, 5 December).

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. Twenty-four per cent of London
councils are rated as excellent.

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