The Accounts Commission has praised Scottish Borders Council for the progress it has made in a number of areas in its Best Value report, but has highlighted issues that need improvement including the need to focus on service improvement.

The Commission said that the council needs focus on developing a clear strategy to manage its assets, deal with “fragmented customer care”, and ensure its services become more competitive in order to improve its efforts to achieve best value.

Commission chairman Alistair MacNish said that Borders needs to do more work to ensure its results match its ambitions.

“Scottish Borders Council is an ambitious council and it has invested significantly in response to the findings of inspection and audit reports over recent years. It has built its senior management capacity and has developed appropriate and effective political and management systems. Scottish Borders is an ambitious council that is realistic about its strengths and weaknesses. Many of the improvements have come in recently. The council now needs to build on these to raise the quality of the services it delivers to its people.

“In doing so, the council needs to focus on its capacity to deliver its own very ambitious improvement programme. There is currently a gap between the council’s current performance and its aspirations,” he said.

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