Tory Council happy with below average performance

5.30.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 8th May 2009

At a meeting of the council on Thursday the Conservatives running North Herts Council dismissed a bad report from the Audit Commission claiming that the Audit Commission got it wrong. They rejected a Liberal Democrat proposal to recognise that the Council was falling behind other districts and needed to do better.

Steve Jarvis, Liberal Democrat leader of the opposition on the council, said, "The Audit Commission report clearly identified that North Herts council's performance and value for money is worse than most other district councils. They reached this conclusion after studying the council's performance and comparing it will other councils where they have conducted similar exercises . The Audit Commission is an independent body that has no reason to conclude that North Herts Council is worse than other councils unless that's what the evidence shows. Rather than accept that there is a need to do things differently and that the Audit Commission is providing helpful information the leader of the council told us that the Audit Commission is wrong and that everything is fine.

"Many people will think that this sort of complacency is one of the reasons why North Herts Council performs more poorly than it could."