CLENT INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE

  • BROMSGROVE DISTRICT COUNCIL AUDIT INSPECTION REPORTS
  • ANOTHER REPORT IS DUE OUT NEXT MONTH JANUARY 2009....LOOK OUT FOR IT HERE!

 Bromsgrove District Council is part of Worcestershire, and is south west of Birmingham. The main town is Bromsgrove and much of the area is rural. The area has a population of 86,000 with a small ethnic minority population and a low unemployment rate.

POOR FAIR GOOD EXCELLENT..Where do you feel your council should be rated??-The auditors have rated this council POOR since the grading started 8 years ago!

Main remarks by auditors in June 2007 where the council was failing was:-

  • Putting customers first - the opening of the customer service centre is a step in the right direction but more needs to be done to improve the customer experience
  • Councillors need to change their attitude, work together and stop bickering in public
  • Being clear and listening to residents about what services are and are not important and providing good value for money
  • Investing in priorities and move money away from areas that are not a priority
  • Improving partnership working, especially with the county council

30 Apr 2001
Inspection reports
Depot Services - Bromsgrove District Council

Exrtract from the 2001 report above was:-many other services are poor and some services were deteriorating:

  • The Council misses some dustbin collections, this has become worse over the last three years, and continues to deteriorate.
  • Employee productivity is low in a number of services, such as housing repairs and grounds maintenance.
  • Sickness rates are unacceptably high – an average of ½ day a week in some cases.
  • Customer services is poor and it is difficult to contact some services, such as cesspool emptying.
  • Existing contracts are poorly specified and do not give value for money.
  • Staff are not adequately managed resulting in a lack of performance management and poor productivity.
  • The targets the Council has set itself are unrealistic, not achieved and not monitored.

Our inspection highlighted that the Council had been aware of many of the weaknesses with the service for over a year but had yet to tackle them properly. It undertook a very limited options appraisal and decided to let a single contract for all of the services. The Council has not developed an improvement plan for the service that sets out how the service will be improved and what standards residents can expect.

7 The tender process was flawed and the end result did not deliver the envisaged better service at lower cost. Councillors have been misled over the true cost of the new contract. The Council has added £250,000 to the cost of the service with a new staff bonus (known locally as “profit share”), that is not linked to better services or productivity. The Council has no plan of how it will implement the new ‘contract’ or manage the service.

8 We lack confidence in the Council’s financial and performance management arrangements. The external auditor has raised concerns about the financial statements and has qualified the accounts for 1999/2000. The new contract fails to significantly improve on the current levels of service. The Council has not demonstrated in these services the vision, drive, and capacity to deliver best value for its residents.

Stan Francis's remark's on this audit were:-

The council took on a refuse new service and even though the vehicles came free from DEFRA, they still managed to make it cost an extra £250K more than the previous bin system...it is due to this why we are now being asked to pay for a GREEN BIN sytem!

5 Mar 2002
Inspection reports
Corporate Governance - Bromsgrove District Council

25 May 2005
Press releases
Bromsgrove District Council's e-government services rated as 'fair'.

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by clentindependent | 0 comments

UPDATES ON CLENT DIVISION

Updates on the issues concerning us all in the Clent Division are here.

The flooding will continue as the Worcs County Council ignore the plight of us all being flooded out at just a light rain fall.

A complaint has gone into the LGO and we shall be getting a reply soon on why the council's are dragging their feet on important issues like flooding.

Continued complaints ill be sent in on issues like road and footpath repair and the lost Green bin service.