An independent review of all District councils in England and Wales has confirmed that services provided by Mid Sussex District Council (MSDC) have improved significantly.
The Audit Commission has now published its annual assessment, which shows MSDC is now ranked 23rd out of 388 similar authorities for its rate of improvement.
The Leader of the Council, Councillor Gordon Marples, said of the Audit Commission findings:
"It is a great testament to the staff and leadership of this Council. Despite the difficult decisions we have to take and the financial constraints we must work to, we are striving to maintain our existing services and to improve their delivery to residents.
Other Audit Commission figures show we are in the bottom 10% o Council spenders, so clearly we offer excellent value for money too. This, together with recent figures which show resident satisfaction with the Council has improved from 48% t 63%, ean that whilst the benefits of change do take time to be come apparent, we are certainly on the right track."
The Audit Commission's report measures how MSDC delivers some key frontline services, like the speed at which planning decisions are reached, the amount and cost of household waste and recycling collections, satisfaction with parks and sports facilities and the speed of processing housing benefits. It then compares these figures with those for all other district councils in the country. These comparative figures show that for MSDC 72% o these performance measures have improved in the last year, well above the average for district council's nationally, which is a band between 56% ad 59%. /p>
The report also shows that, MSDC has 37% o these performance measures in the top quartile, again above the national average of 33%.
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PR960/KH/JB
15 December 2008
