Redbridge Council has been named the sixth most productive and most improved council in the country.

The new ranking comes in spite of central government cuts to the authority equating to a 55 per cent or a £166 million reduction in its overall budget.

Council leader Cllr Jas Athwal said of the ranking: “That has all been achieved with a backdrop of £166 million worth of cuts and while I think we are not perfect, we are utilising the money as much as we can and it gives the officers the sense of satisfaction that we are on the right track and doing the right thing.

“We clearly have more to do, but just to be told we are on the right path, I am really pleased with what iMPOWER have had to say.

“According to government funding reports, there are more cuts in the pipeline and that is where we are. It adds weight to the argument for community hubs, which have been well received – if we do not take these opportunities now, we will not have those opportunities later.”

The council has introduced the idea of community hubs, where leisure facilities such as swimming pools, gyms and studios will all be provided on centralised sites which will generate money to keep themselves running, rather than adding further financial burden to the stretched council budget.

Cllr Kam Rai, cabinet member for finance, said: “We have got some of smallest budgets in country and general public opinion is usually of councils being inefficient, but we are spending every pound carefully. We as a cabinet are always on the case about what the additional benefits of all spending can be.

“Everyone out there needs to understand that in the last eight years we have lost half of our funding and with a growing population the demand on the council is increasing.

“With more government cuts likely, we are desperately trying to use every penny as efficiently as possible, but there is only so much you can do sometimes. To tackle that, we are changing services rather than cutting them.

“You could cut that service really easily, you could cut it tomorrow. But that is not what we are here for.”

The rankings were compiled by company iMPOWER by comparing investment levels and efficiency in the way councils spend money on services; including child social care, health and social care, care for the elderly and disabled, housing and waste management.

The first iMPOWER ranking came in December 2017 and has developed since then to include discussions with council’s leadership teams to assess performance through discussion.

On its website, iMPOWER describes its ranking system as one that “enables us to answer, pound for pound, which councils are spending their money most effectively and getting the best outcomes for citizens.