Residents Survey shows Ealing Council is "not value for money"

5.57.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 28th Jun 2009

Nigel Bakhai with Ealing Lib Dem Councillors Harvey Rose, Gary Malcolm and Jon Ball, and Kingston & Surbiton MP Edward Davey

The results of a national survey looking into people's perceptions of their local area and the local services they receive has been published this week and shows that a majority of residents think that Tory-run Ealing Council is not providing "value for money".

The 2008 Place survey, released by the Government this week, collects information on 18 national indicators for local government, and is used to measure local government performance for 152 county councils, metropolitan district councils, London boroughs and unitary authorities around the country.

Ealing Council fared particularly badly in the survey with only 31% of residents thinking that the Council is providing value for money and less than half of residents were satisfied with the way the Council is run. However, as a result of the same survey, the prize for the most content London community went to Lib Dem run Richmond Council.

Ealing Lib Dem Councillors voted to freeze council tax this year to help those suffering from the current credit crunch, but in the last year have also exposed the fact that the Council has wasted millions on an Icelandic bank investment, allowed Council staff to visit the Cote d'Azur for an expensive training event, racked up a huge number of complaints from residents to the Ombudsman, and is now likely to miss out on around £4 million pounds of extra investment by failing to meet Government targets.

Commenting on the survey results, Ealing Lib Dem Nigel Bakhai said: "The Place Survey results show that Ealing Council still has a long way to go to improve its reputation for its provision of services and value for money. Ealing Liberal Democrats will continue to monitor the council's efficiency and expose wasteful spending to ensure that Council taxpayers are not picking up the bill in this tough economic climate."