Annual Letter 2003 - London Borough of Haringey FINAL - Page 2-5

Sep 2, 2026

LB Haringey Annual Letter 2003 records an audit and inspection review conducted by a Relationship Manager and District Auditor on 20 January 2004. The assessment highlights service improvement signs, while noting that several key indicators remain in the lowest quartile and some performance targets were not met. It outlines medium-term priorities, learning mechanisms through complaints and resident surveys, and capacity building through organisational development. Recommendations emphasize sustaining improvement actions, controlling projected overspends in social services, strengthening debt management, meeting advanced account deadlines, and enhancing grant claim preparation quality assurance.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Recommendations

Service improvement and performance actions

Financial control and debt management

Accounts deadlines and grant claim quality assurance

Strategic aim: Assessment

Achievement and key indicators

Prioritisation and resident input

Learning and future plans

Ambition and performance strengthening

Capacity and investment

Performance management framework

Inspection / performance work

Enforcement

E-government, customer care, complaints management and communications

Democratic renewal (follow-up)

Risk management

| Reference: | LB Haringey audit and inspection AL | | --- | --- | | Authors: | Relationship Manager and District Auditor | | Date: | 20 January 2004 | | Recommendations | | --- | | The Council should:
• continue to implement the actions contained within its Improvement Plan and ensure that further improvement in services occur. | | • consider applying the conclusions from our embedding performance review to services generally as an aid to its aim of improvement. | | • ensure that continued management emphasis is given to containing projected overspends, particularly in social services. | | • continue to monitor efforts to improve debt management with a view to reducing the substantial levels of debt and ensuring the level of bad debt provisions is appropriate. | | • ensure that it has appropriate resources and processes in place to deliver the 2003/04 accounts within the advanced deadlines. | | • ensure that improvements in grant claim preparations are continued at a departmental level and consider enhancing its quality assurance process in respect of the supporting working papers. | | Annual Letter 2003 | London Borough of Haringey FINAL – Page 2 | | --- | --- | | Annual Letter 2003 | London Borough of Haringey FINAL – Page 3 | | --- | --- | | Strategic aim | Assessment | | --- | --- | | Achievement | The Council is demonstrating signs of service improvement although a number of its key indicators are in the lowest quartile and it has failed to achieve some of its own performance targets. Significant improvements have been achieved in two of the Council’s priority areas, social services and education. The Council still has some way to go to achieve its goal of being a top-performing authority. | | Prioritisation | The Council has clear medium term priorities set out in its Community Strategy, which are monitored through its CPA Corporate Assessment Action Plan. Revisions to the business planning process have been introduced to ensure services focus priorities. The Council also looks to build in residents views through an annual resident’s survey. | | Learning and
Future plans | Our work has shown that the Council uses different tools, such as complaints procedures and residents surveys as sources of learning, and participates in external groups, such as the North London Procurement Group to share knowledge. Recent external inspections,(detailed below) have also demonstrated capacity for improvement. | | Ambition | The Council has set a target of becoming one of the top performing councils by 2005. However our review of the 2002/03 performance indicators suggested | | Annual Letter 2003 | London Borough of Haringey FINAL – Page 4 | | --- | --- | | | that in many areas, targets had not been achieved. We understand that the Council is in the process of strengthening links between staff appraisals and the achievement of targets, and improving monitoring arrangements to improve performance. | | --- | --- | | Capacity | A comprehensive organisational development programme is being implemented to develop skills and social services have had success in the recruitment and retention of social workers, a priority area. | | Performance
management | The Council has put in place a comprehensive performance management framework, covering financial and activity monitoring, and has linked targets to staff appraisals. We have reviewed the effectiveness of the Council’s corporate arrangements on service delivery through our work on libraries reported below . | | Investment | The Council has invested in priority areas, such as environment, education and social services. | | Recommendation | | --- | | The Council should continue to implement the actions contained within its Improvement Plan and ensure that further improvement in services occur. | | Recommendation | | --- | | The Council should consider applying the conclusions from our embedding performance review to services generally as an aid to its aim of improvement.

FAQs

What overall performance conclusions were stated in the Annual Letter 2003?

The Council showed signs of service improvement, with significant gains in social services and education. Several key indicators still sit in the lowest quartile and some own performance targets were not achieved.

What were the Council’s medium-term priorities and how were they monitored?

Medium-term priorities were set out in the Community Strategy and monitored through the CPA Corporate Assessment Action Plan. Revisions to business planning were introduced to ensure services focus priorities, with resident input gathered via an annual resident survey.

What recommendations did the auditors make to support improvement?

The Council should continue implementing its Improvement Plan actions, apply conclusions from an embedding performance review to services generally, manage projected overspends (especially in social services), improve debt management, meet advanced account deadlines, and enhance grant claim preparation and quality assurance for supporting working papers.

Sep 2, 2026

Uploaded by Ethan Miller