Ribble Valley Borough Council’s Comprehensive Area Assessment

The Audit Commission and its partner watchdogs released the first set of Comprehensive Area Assessments, along with Organisational Assessments for individual councils, in December 2009.

The assessments judge how well local councils, the police, health authorities and housing organisations are improving issues that are important to residents. The assessments use a system of green and red flags, where green flags show something innovative or excellent and red flags show where more needs to be done.

Ribble Valley Borough Council's Organisational Assessment revealed that the authority is performing adequately in the core areas of managing performance and use of resources, while it is working well with partners to provide affordable housing, tackle crime and improve quality of life in the borough.

Inspectors said: "Ribble Valley Borough Council is performing adequately overall. It is clear about what is important in the district and is delivering mainly good and improving services."

The assessment calls on Ribble Valley Borough Council to do more to find out the needs and views of all sections of the community, increase awareness among staff of equality and diversity issues, and make increased use of information from partners and stakeholders in decision-making and commissioning.

Detailed results of Ribble Valley Borough Council's Comprehensive Area Assessment and Organisational Assessment are available here, or from the dedicated web site, Oneplace.