Ashford Borough Council
Best Value Report

December 2001

Highlighted parts of this report are omitted from the published version as they may assist fraudsters, contain confidential information or unnecessarily identify individuals.

Contents

• Best Value
• Summary and recommendations
• Summary
• Recommendations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Profiling Ashford Borough Council
• Background
• The Benefits Service in Ashford Borough Council
• 2 Findings – How good are the services?
• Are the aims clear and challenging?
• Does the service meet the aims?
• How does performance compare?
• 3 Findings: How good is Ashford’s counter-fraud service?
• Are the aims clear and challenging?
• Does the service meet these aims?
• How does performance compare?
• 4 Findings: Is the service going to improve?
• Does the service drive improvement?
• How good is the improvement plan?
• Will the authority deliver the improvements?
• Appendix A – Methodology
• Appendix B – Customer services
• Appendix C – Counter-fraud measures and processes
• Appendix D – Overpayment recovery