In April 2010 secretary of state John Denham announced that the government was intervening in Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council due to ‘gross’ failures.
The subsequent direction removed the authority’s right to appoint senior posts and imposed Commissioners with the power to overrule council decisions.
More than four years later, with Doncaster much improved, those Commissioners are still in place.
In 2012 Wirral Council faced two critical reports into service failure and bullying which characterised the council as a place where the abnormal was normal: where practices and behaviours that elsewhere would be unacceptable, were accepted, and consequently there was a failure to serve the community effectively.
Like Doncaster, Wirral had to face up to significant failings in services and in corporate governance. However, in the Wirral the path followed was very different. Instead of external intervention, the council has been a test-case for the Local Government Association’s (LGA’s) sector-led improvement offer.
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