First ever CAA confirms Richmond upon Thames is 'performing well' in all key areas

5.57.20pm GMT Thu 10th Dec 2009

• THE Audit Commissions' first ever Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) has given a strong vote of confidence in Richmond Council for the way it serves the borough and works with local partners.

The report says that overall the Council performs well and scores three out of four. The report notes that residents have the highest satisfaction with their local area of any London borough and recognises the council is making good progress in all of its priority areas including making it the safest borough and protecting the environment.

Commenting on the report, Leader of Richmond Council Serge Lourie said: "This is a very good statement for us. The report was almost entirely positive about our council and the work we and our partners are doing for the borough. I am particularly pleased that it recognises how we are performing well in our priority areas. It mentions that we are one of the lowest crime boroughs in London; in fact we are the safest. It notes that our children's services are rated as excellent, acknowledges the work we are doing to protect the environment and credits us with responding well to the challenge of supporting the local community through the recession.

"We are clearly in a very strong position from which to keep improving and as the Audit Commission has said - this is a harder test than any that has gone before. The report recognises the constraints on our funding; we are the worst funded borough in London, while at the same time noting our strong focus on efficiency and considering radical new ways of delivering our services. We know what we have to keep doing in all our priority areas and we are clear that the key to the further improvements that we are committed to lies in our current efficiency drive. We are determined to keep improving but in the meantime it is very good to this have this vote of confidence from the Audit Commission in what we are doing."

Christina Conroy, Principal and Chief Executive of Richmond Adult Community College: "We have worked closely with the Council and other organisations to support many groups, including long term unemployed young people and unemployed professional with events, information and training. In these tough times people look to their local authorities and other public organisations to help them and although we have more work to do, I am happy to say that in Richmond upon Thames, the various partners have worked very well together and it is very good to see this recognised in the CAA."

The borough's police commander Detective Chief Superintendent Rick Turner said: "This has been a year when Richmond has remained the safest borough in London and crime has continued to fall. This is especially true in our target areas where less than a 1000 people suffered a burglary - the lowest number since records began. Youth violence, street robbery and theft from motor vehicles have all continued to reduce year on year. Our Community Safety Partnership which involves the police working with the Local Authority, voluntary agencies and local people continues to drive this crime reduction. The partnership continues to work to find innovative ways to tackle and reduce crime and reduce the fear of crime. On this Borough the Police with our partners are not complacent. I am confident that together we can keep improving."

Notes:

• The Oneplace website information and judgements have been made jointly by the Care Quality Commission, Ofsted, the Audit Commission and Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary, Prisons and Probation

• The Organisational Assessment (OA) is very different to Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA), so the scores are not comparable. The OA puts more emphasis on whether organisations are using their resources effectively and providing good value for money. It also assesses how well they are managing their performance - and it uses more demanding criteria. Instead of the old star rating, councils are now graded on a four point scale. 1 means poor, 2 means adequate, 3 means performing well and 4 means excellent.

Related Link:

• Richmond upon Thames on OnePlace