Labour's Star-ship Enterprise Stalls

3.00.00pm GMT Mon 16th Mar 2009

It is well known that Labour moved heaven and earth to improve its Star Rating from the Audit Commission - and failed.

A massive amount of officer time was spent on training, presentation skills, massaging (the figures that is), hymn-sheet singing co-ordination, whistling in the dark and probably spiritualism as well (if the ghost libraries story is anything to go by).

Fortunately for Labour the full impact of the Housing Department scandal hadn't broken, nor the full extent of the massive £23 million and rising deficit, when the Inspectors were in Town - although even they showed concern in their final report at the lax system that allowed even the £6.7 million first inkling to emerge.

Poor Labour Leader, Steve Reed, having promised the electorate Four Stars in Four Years, had to make do with second best - something he must be growing used to. Now he stands no chance at all of reaching that goal.

Yet the latest edition of Pravda (Lambeth Life) trumpets the Council's best result ever, which is odd to say the least given that the Audit Commission downgraded their view of the Council's prospects for improvement.

Meanwhile London Councils everywhere seem to have been doing rather better than Lambeth with a majority now in the three star or four-star category.

We wonder, anyway, whether this Golden Globes mentality actually means anything or does much to really improve the lot of ordinary citizens or the kind of service they receive from any Council.

We question, too, whether this amount of time, expense and officer effort really justifies the effort of a few gongs - especially when, as this time, the result is so disappointing? We wonder just how much more improved the services might be now if all that effort had actually gone into - well - just improving services.

Given the colossal problems in Housing, the failure to set a budget at all in Environment, parks and libraries starved of cash, and tenants struggling against the combined weight of the credit crunch and the rent and energy increases, we might have imagined that the Council might have been less engrossed in chasing stars.

To do so and still miss looks like carelessness bordering on recklessness.