How clean is the local hospital, how good the school down the road, how efficient the police? What about teenage mothers, recycling, litter, care of the elderly? Now, for the first time, people can find out at the click of a mouse how quality of life in their area compares with the rest of the country.
The Oneplace site , which goes live today, has been compiled by the Audit Commission and allows householders to hold their council, their MP or their hospital to account for their ratings on infant mortality, child protection orders, traffic accidents, CO2 emissions or violent crime. Warrington and Doncaster are among the worst councils in England, ranked on services and council performance, according to the website. Kent and Suffolk rank among the best, together with the London boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea.
The Oneplace site brings together information on health, children, environment, crime and housing in individual assessments of 152 areas nationwide. Parents who want to move nearer good schools or businesses relocating can also look up ratings on a variety of services that can be compared across the country.
They will be able to access data on teenage pregnancy, exam results, public transport, council house waiting lists, green technology, refuse collection, council tax and even street prostitution. Warrington is the only council that has three red flags, denoting failure to tackle key local issues, but it scores “adequate” on town hall management. Doncaster has the lowest town hall score with two red flags for services.
The site has had its critics: “Labour has created an army of clipboard inspectors to monitor councils, which has done nothing to stop council tax doubling or frontline services like weekly bin collections being cut,” said Caroline Spelman, Shadow Communities Secretary while
YourThurrock will be assessing Thurrock’s rating once we can get onto the site. As of 9am (wednesday) the site was unavailable due to the high volume of traffic.
