Staffordshire Moorlands District Council is well managed and delivers value for money, but also has key issues including staff motivation and retention, an independent review has found.

In January the Council, and its Strategic Alliance partner High Peak Borough Council, invited a team of local government professionals to review its operations and performance as part of the Local Government Association's Corporate Peer Challenge process.

The review team has now released its report which identifies the Council's strengths as well as areas it can improve on.

The report has praised the council for being a "well managed organisation over many years" with "sound financial management" and "good governance".

However it also highlighted areas for improvement, including "key issues around staff motivation and retention that need extremely careful handling."

The report praised the council's "ambitious" target to become carbon neutral by 2030 after declaring a climate emergency, but added that more action was needed to put this into place now that the plans had been drawn up.

Council Leader, Councillor Paul Roberts, said: "It's important that councils to hear from others who work in local government about the things that we do well and where there are opportunities for improvement and that's why we took part in the peer review process.

"We welcome the report the team that reviewed us, and our Alliance partners High Peak, have provided and the valuable insights it gives us.

"Our priority is to ensure the services we provide to our residents, businesses and visitors are the best they can be - and we've already set out the actions we'll take on the back of this review to make sure they are.

"I'd like to thank everyone involved in this process, including our councillors and staff, our partners and the reviewers themselves, for their time and support and assure them we will use what we've learnt to benefit everyone in our District."

You can read the full report on the council's website here.