Performance
The council has been assessed by the Audit Commission in the same way as other councils, but has not been scored on overall assessment. They have scored our assessment of how well resources have been used, based on the last financial year of the former County Council, which controlled most of the council spending for the area.
Northumberland County Council was successful in achieving its number one priority of moving to the new council with as little disruption to services as possible. Inevitably there were some early teething problems (with the telephone system, for instance), but these issues were quickly resolved. Reorganisation is already beginning to bring advantages. New Neighbourhood and Environment Action Teams, for example, carry out a range of local services, such as refuse collection and street cleaning, in a flexible and more cost-effective way.
Ofsted's rating for children's services in Northumberland County Council is that it performs well. Where there are poor outcomes or inequalities, the Council knows about the issues and is tackling them.
The Care Quality Commission judges the Northumberland Care Trust to be performing well as a provider of adult social care services. The Commission thinks the Trust is performing either excellently or well on each of the seven aspects in its assessment.
Services to provide housing and housing support to some vulnerable people have been judged unsatisfactory, but the Council has drawn up some good plans to improve them.
The Council is making some progress in working with partners to reduce inequalities in health across the county. For example, death rates from heart-related diseases have fallen in south-east Northumberland, in some areas quite significantly.
The Council is working well with partners to reduce crime in the area. The level of crime is low compared with other parts of the country and it is reducing still further.
The Council scores 2 out of 4 for use of resources. It manages its finances adequately. Budgets are balanced and generally well managed. The cost of services is generally above average with mixed, though mainly good, performance. The Council compares itself to others, although there is not a standard approach to benchmarking across all services and comparisons concentrate more on performance than costs. The Council has a good track record of achieving efficiency savings but now faces financial pressures on an entirely new scale.
In the light of these budget pressures and the opportunities for a new approach offered by local government reorganisation (LGR), the Council is reviewing its priorities. It is thinking radically about how things might be done differently or indeed not at all. With no party in overall control, decision making is more difficult. There is a risk the necessary hard decisions will be too tough to take.
For more performance information please visit the Oneplace website.
