Performance management

Best Value Comparisions

How does Bedford compare to other local authorities?

To ensure that the Council is accountable to the people that it serves we try to make our performance open and transparent to public.

One of the principal means by which we do this is to publish our performance against indicators set nationally by the Government. All local authorities are required to report their performance against these indicators each year. Collectively these indicators are designed to enable the comparison of performance between different authorities and within the same authority over time.

The headings below link to tables of performance indicators, which enable you to check our performance. The headings group these indicators into similar sets to aid comprehension.

The tables show Bedford’s performance in relation to the average performance of all other District councils nationally in England and Wales and in comparison to the performance of authorities in Bedford’s Audit Commission Comparator Group.

In order to make meaningful comparisons between authorities it helps if those authorities are of a similar type. The Audit Commission, the Government’s financial watchdog, has undertaken analysis to determine which authorities in England are most like Bedford in terms of size, population etc and these authorities form the basis of the Audit Commission Comparator Group.

Click on the links below to find out how we compare.