Surrey County Council Rated "Adequate" by Audit Commission

12.40.00am GMT Wed 9th Dec 2009

"Surrey residents deserve better" says County Councillor Hazel Watson.

The Audit Commission has today published a report rating Surrey County Council's performance as merely "adequate". The Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) rated the performance of the organisation with scores from 1 to 4 for managing performance, use of resources, managing finances, governing the business and managing resources. The County Council only achieved a score of 2 out of 4 which means that it meets only minimum requirements and only performs adequately.

The Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council, Cllr Hazel Watson said: "The performance of the County Council is unimpressive. Surrey residents deserve better. They should expect good value for money services, but this has not been delivered by the Conservative administration. There is a lot of room for improvement in the way that the Council is run and there is no room for complacency. The Conservative administration is still wasting too much money running an inefficient and bureaucratic organisation. It is cutting services that Surrey residents want instead of cutting bureaucracy."

She added: "The County Council is still answerable to central government following an improvement notice requiring Surrey's Children's Services to improve after it was rated inadequate last year. Last week the Care Quality Commission rated Adult Social Services as one of the eight worst Social Services in the whole country. Many Surrey residents are still dissatisfied with the condition of Surrey's roads including inaction to tackle serious flooding on the roads."