ADULT social care in Harrow has been judged most improved in London by a watchdog.

The service provided by Harrow Council received “excellent” ratings in two areas for the first time, one for responding to the borough's diverse community and the other for involving and listening to residents.

The department responsible for adult care has has moved from a one star rating three years ago to receiving three stars out of four from watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) this year.

The borough has been at the cutting edge of a new way of providing services through “personal budgets,” where adults are given the money that would have been spent on them and allowed to chose what care they want and from what providers.

The council was the first in the country to use an Amazon-style online market place, called shop4support, which has won an award.

Councillor Margaret Davine, responsible for adults, social care, health and wellbeing, said she was “very pleased” the authority's hard work had been recognised and that it had received the two scores of “excellent”.

“This work is on-going and the efforts will continue but these results give us a strong platform to work from.

“It is important that we have a strong base with the inevitable changes to come in funding for our department.

“The work we are doing within adult social care is vitally important, because it directly affects the lives of our residents.

“To know that we have been judged as excellent in a number of report categories is very positive. A lot of credit is due to the dedicated staff we have here.”