Ref. 28334-8Swindon Borough Council is continuing to perform badly according the latest inspection by the Audit Commission. MICHAEL LITCHFIELD looks at why things are still going wrong and what can be done.

NAMED, blamed and shamed yet again! Govern-ment inspectors have dumped Swindon in the bottom handful of 150 councils for performance for the second consecutive year.

Just as it seemed things could only get better, they have worsened.

Last year Swindon Council was placed in the last 10. Now Swindon has slipped into the lowest seven.

Even more depressing is the damning judgement from the inspectors that they see little hope of improvement.

The view at Westminster is that Swindon has been in the Last Chance Saloon so long that it has drunk dry all goodwill.

Swindon's overall rating is poor exactly the same as last year.

There were five possible categories excellent, good, fair, weak and poor.

Points from one to four were awarded for each council service.

Social care for adults has gone from bad to worse. Last year it scored two points. This time it has plummeted to one.

Environment services went the same gloomy way as social care for adults.

Social care for children remained at two points, while social care for children and the use of resources were static on three.

This grim indictment comes just two days after Coun Bawden was summoned to London for a dressing down by Whitehall mandarin Averil Nottage, the Acting Chief Inspectorate for Social Services.

If there is a light amid the darkness it is in education, with a climb from two to three.

Conservative council leader Mike Bawden (Old Town and Lawns) accepted the findings with "disappointment" but stressed that there was no question of "denial". He said: "We accept that the time for talking has come to an end. Now we have to act.

"Recovery is a long journey, not an overnight trip. But the buck stops with me and the chief executive."

Information was garnered by the Audit Commission during a three-day visit in October.

Coun Bawden said: "This wasn't a full-blown and detailed inspection, just a summary visit to give us an indication of which direction our improvements are going.

"I look forward to the day when we can have a full and comprehensive inspection, which will be our first chance to lose the so-called poor label that we were given last time.

"I can already see progress, despite the findings of this report."

A whole new management team was being assembled, he said. The re-structuring process was nearly complete and this was pivotal to improvement.

"I could blame my predecessors but there's no mileage in that," he said.

"The past is interesting but the only thing that matters now is the future.

"We have lots of hurdles to overcome but I'd determined we shall jumped them all.

"I'm a sportsman, but I don't like losing."

New chief executive Simon Birch said: "Things were so bad that we knew we couldn't do everything all at once. Instead, we drew up an improvement plan and set down two key priorities to tackle first.

"Those were education and the need for a strong management team to lead from the front. Today's audit report shows that those measures are working.

"Now we have to tackle other priority areas. Social services is top of the list."

Coun Bawden indicated that if Swindon had not climbed the league by this time next year he would take that failure personally.

He added: "2004 will be the crunch year. There is no margin for error. I believe that within a few weeks we shall have a winning team in place.

"There are no excuses for the position we find ourselves in today. And there will most certainly be none if we are still at the bottom at the end of 2004."