Four-star Sutton vows to keep improving

1.42.15pm GMT Thu 19th Mar 2009

Sutton's Lib Dem Council has been given further recognition of its place as one of the top councils in the country.

The independent government watchdog, the Audit Commission, has awarded the council the top four-star rating for the fourth year running after a thorough inspection of a wide range of council activities. To prove that the council is not resting on its laurels, the Audit Commission said there is real evidence that the council is 'improving strongly.'

The Lib Dem administration has greeted the news with a promise to keep raising standards and providing better, more cost effective services for people in Sutton.

Inspectors praised the way the council 'provides excellent value for money' and had made significant financial savings. It also praised the way Sutton Council works in partnership with its residents and other authorities. It also drew attention to the fact that crime and fear of crime in the borough had fallen.

Environmental performance was judged to be excellent while Sutton had the highest customer service satisfaction rating in London.

The findings were reported in the annual Comprehensive Performance Assessment published on Thursday 5 March.

Lib Dem Council Leader, Cllr Sean Brennan, said: "Our focus has always been providing quality services for people in Sutton at the right price. In these challenging economic times residents and businesses need our support now more than ever.

"While we are very pleased by the Audit Commission's judgement we will not rest on our laurels. This result will spur us to set the bar even higher, provide better value for money and the best services we can. I would like to thank our staff and partners for their hard work and commitment to making Sutton a better place to live, work and go to school."

Note: The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) is a judgement by the Audit Commission of the Council's performance across all its services. It assesses the quality of current services and the likelihood of success in improving services in the future. The judgement will be used as the basis of action planning to improve local services. The CPA results for Sutton are available at www.audit-commision.gov.uk

• Further evidence of the standing of Sutton's Lib Dem Council has been given by the leading international consultancy, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) which has identified Sutton as the best performing local council in London, and one of the three or four top councils in the country.

PWC compared official information on performance for all councils in providing a wide range of activities and services.