What do the Government's Inspectors say?
Overall the Council is performing strongly, well above minimum requirements. With its partners across the county it has developed clear and challenging ambitions that reflect the needs and diversity of its communities. These cover four key, cross-cutting themes - safe and strong communities; health and wellbeing; economic prosperity and lifelong learning; and environment, infrastructure and transport. They are underpinned by a commitment to long-term sustainability and social inclusion. The Council is forward looking, with a strong understanding of the key challenges facing Hampshire. These include responding to the demands for growth, and the impact of climatic and demographic changes.
Corporate Assessment 2007
The Corporate Assessment looked at every aspect of how the County Council is managed and how it serves the population of Hampshire. Although this was predominantly an assessment of Hampshire County Council there was a strong emphasis on the quality of partnerships and how we work with partners.
Hampshire County Council scored four out of four in the latest test of its performance by Government watchdog the Audit Commission.
This is the sixth consecutive year that Hampshire has achieved the highest rating and been in the top performing quartile of county councils and unitary authorities.
We were judged on five key themes: Ambition for the community; prioritisation; capacity; performance management and achievement. Throughout all five themes, the inspectors were particularly looking for evidence of: Community leadership; working in partnership; political and managerial leadership; user focus and diversity and value for money.
As part of the test the County Council was also judged as improving well and this is borne out by higher judgments being achieved for environment and cultural services compared to last year. In making its judgment the Audit Commission stated that: “Overall the Council is performing strongly, well above minimum requirements. With its partners across the county it has developed clear and challenging ambitions that reflect the needs and diversity of its communities. These cover four key, cross-cutting themes - safe and strong communities; health and wellbeing; economic prosperity and lifelong learning; and environment, infrastructure and transport. They are underpinned by a commitment to long-term sustainability and social inclusion. The Council is forward looking, with a strong understanding of the key challenges facing Hampshire. These include responding to the demands for growth, and the impact of climatic and demographic changes.’’
Joint Area Review of Children's Services
The Joint Area Review has judged services for children and young people in Hampshire to be consistently ‘good’ with some ‘outstanding’ features. This gives an overall score of three (out of four) which feeds into the Council’s overall Corporate Assessment.
The Joint Area Review (JAR) was a major inspection of the services provided for vulnerable children and young people across Hampshire, not just those provided by the County Council, but including all Partner organisations. It focussed on how we work together across health, the district councils, the voluntary sector and other organisations to look after and provide services for children and young people in Hampshire.
John Coughlan, Director of Children’s Services says: “This is great news and a fair result for Hampshire. I am acutely aware of some of the serious challenges some areas of service face and I am fiercely determined that we should address those challenges and further improve the outcomes for our most vulnerable children. But I know what we provide and achieve now is already good, largely because of our exceptional workforce. I just want it to be better and this result gives us the right platform to improve with confidence”.
The County Council and partners will celebrate this achievement, but more importantly now need to put our energy and commitment into a robust improvement plan to address the recommendations from the JAR and to build on this achievement.
Annual Audit and Inspection Letter
In addition to inspecting our services, the Audit Commission appoint a local auditor to audit our accounts and ensure we have appropriate arrangements in place to manage the authority effectively. Each year the local auditor writes a formal letter to County Councillors, which makes recommendations for improvement. The 2007 Annual Audit and Inspection Letter states: Hampshire County Council is improving well. The Council continues to improve well in its priority areas.'.
View the 2007 Annual Audit and Inspection letter here
Audit of Performance Plan and Performance Indicators
As part of these arrangements the local auditor must also make sure this Performance Plan complies with legislation and that the performance data is accurate.