Wolverhampton Is Getting Better

Wolverhampton ranks 35th out of 354 English Districts and as such comes within the top 10% of deprived districts. In the year 2000 Index the City was ranked 29th. This is an indication in my mind that Wolverhampton is doing better both in economic and social terms.

The full information will be placed on the site over the next few days. Liverpool is the most deprived English City and Birmingham ranks number 15, with Sandwell in at 16.

Councillor Phil Bateman said "I believe that this information coming on top of the recent survey that placed this local authority in 4th place in the UK, is good news for the City. It also indicates the progress this Labour controlled administration is making. It is very much an explanation as to why Labour did so well in the latest local elections. I do hope that the Group Leadership will make an effort to widely present our improvement to the City as a whole including the business sector."

In 2001, MORI's Social Research Institute published a report called Frontiers of Performance in Local Government. This report drew attention to the impact of the external context under which local authorities are working, and the importance of taking this into account when looking at public perceptions. It helped develop a more rounded picture of what is going on at a local level, and gave us signals as to the range of ratings we might expect a particular local council to achieve. MORI's new report, Frontiers of Performance 2, takes forward this analysis. Our initial draft uses the BVPI data for 2000/1 and, where available, 2003/4, to set individual targets for levels of public satisfaction with each local authority. We will be updating the report later in the year.

This latest report puts each authority's performance in context, and then highlights how far above or below it is from what can reasonably be expected in terms of resident satisfaction — based on the performance of other authorities serving similar populations. It shows that brilliance looks different in different places — as does failure. Given the Audit Commission's renewed focus on user satisfaction and engagement, the report gives leaders and managers useful information to judge their performance.