Crisis council exposed again

What affected residents want to know, and rightly so, is why the full scale of the council's failings, and its inability to run the most basic of services, only started to emerge, in full, after the Edlington scandal where two boys were tortured by two brothers who were known to the authority and its partner agencies.

So far, a disproportionate amount of attention, following the deaths of seven vulnerable children, has been placed on the failings of frontline children's services staff, their poor judgment and their inability to learn from past mistakes – even though a succession of reports has highlighted leadership difficulties and a shortage of resources.

Yet it is now abundantly clear that all staff at this under-fire authority are having to contend with a failure of leadership, and that years of petty feuding and rivalry have been allowed to fester into a full-blown crisis where government intervention in the running of some local services is, shamefully, the only viable solution.

As the Audit Commission lays bare so starkly, it is Doncaster's elected mayor, senior councillors and top officers who are to blame for the serial infighting that has so undermined the provision of efficient and effective local services; a conclusion which reiterates countless reports and investigations published by this newspaper.

Senior councillors have been portrayed as "venomous, vicious and vindictive" – a savage critique of Doncaster's elected representatives and how the interests of their voters continue to be compromised by infighting.

Chief officers, and many have passed through Doncaster's revolving door in recent years, have "struggled to work together collectively to improve services". Yet these are the highly-paid individuals tasked with running the town hall. And Peter Davies, the town's much-maligned elected mayor, is described as "inexperienced", and his lack of background in local government has, according to the Audit Commission, served only to exacerbate Doncaster's difficulties.

Mr Davies has admitted to the Commission that his election last year came as a "surprise" – largely because Mr Davies was an unwitting beneficiary of the "alternative vote" electoral system that Gordon Brown now wants the House of Commons to embrace.

This admission, and page after page of damning evidence which reveals how the Mayor, senior officers and the council's "ruling" cabinet are at odds with one another, demonstrates why there needs to be a thorough re-appraisal of the elected mayoral system before it is introduced at other authorities.

The fact that Mr Davies has broadly accepted these criticisms, and others, is to be welcomed, though his caveat that many of the problems were "embedded" before he assumed power highlights, once again, the extent to which Doncaster's leaders invariably blame others in order to mask their own failings.

The statement by Mr Davies that this is now the time to "draw a line in the sand and move forward for the good of the council and the people we serve" should also be welcomed.

The problem is that similar words have been uttered after each and every controversy at Doncaster – and the result is an authority which has, effectively, been branded as the worst in the country.

It is now incumbent upon the town's elected politicians, and senior officers, to abide by three principles. First, they must accept – without rancour – the intervention measures being finalised by the Government. Second, they must give all public servants the fullest possible support. And, finally, they must resolve to end, once and for all, the political shenanigans that have so shattered public confidence.

If a private enterprise was run as inefficiently and haphazardly as this council, it would have been declared bankrupt years ago and its directors banned from trading.

Just because Doncaster Council relies upon public funds does not excuse – or justify – the wrangling that will, hopefully, be ended by the Audit Commission's unprecedented report which could, just as easily, have been entitled "How not to run a council".