Open Council initiative proves popular

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Wandsworth’s pioneering Open Council section of its website has been viewed nearly 10,000 times since its launch one week ago.

The online pages, where residents can easily see how the council performs on various issues compared to other London boroughs, have proved popular with residents keen to see Wandsworth’s bid to become Britain's most transparent council in action.

Since the transparency initiative launched last Tuesday, this section of the Wandsworth Council website has been viewed by 5,703 different people.

Members of the public have been most interested to see how the town hall compares to the rest of London for household recycling rates and the percentage of carers receiving advice, support or information.

Other key issues for residents include the percentage of older people who are supported to regain their independence after a hospital stay, and council tax charges – for which Wandsworth is the best in London.

Council leader, Councillor Ravi Govindia, said: “It’s fantastic to see that the people of Wandsworth have been engaging with this section of our website – judging for themselves where we are doing well and where we can improve.

“It gives members of the public easy access to information they have every right to see – and in turn an opportunity to hold their council to account if they feel we should be doing better.

“I have no doubt that transparency and openness on this level will drive us to become an even better council.

“We believe Wandsworth is number one for service and value – and I hope that by comparing the quality of services on offer against how much council tax rates are in the borough, our residents will feel the same.”

The data that Wandsworth is publishing is already in the public domain but often buried deep within central government or local government websites.

The information ranges from major roads in need of repair, educational attainment and number of library books issued right through to how long it takes to re-let an empty home and how the authority supports carers.

The performance data sits alongside previously published information on how much the authority spends, where all invoices over £500 are listed.

The publication of this data in Wandsworth fills a gap following the abolition of the Audit Commission which previously published all agreed national indicators and awarded stars according to how good or bad a council was.

To see the full list of performance indicators please click on the link below:
www.wandsworth.gov.uk/opencouncil