28 June 2002
Best Value is dead. Long live the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). Of course, that is not the official position. The Audit Commission insists that Best Value has not followed Compulsory Competitive Tendering into the rubbish bin of failed performance improvement policies. It lives on in the service inspections needed to feed the new CPA system.
But most people in local government believe Best Value is history. Quietly, the Audit Commission's Best Value inspectors have become just inspectors. The commission claims the decision to drop the `Best Value' handle is nothing more than a branding issue. But the latest consultation paper on the CPA, published this week, confirms that if the regime still exists, it is struggling for breath. There is just one mention of it in the context of performance indicators in the whole document.
(If further confirmation of its demise were needed, you need look no further than the NHS. There were proposals to introduce the regime in the NHS Plan, but the whole concept has now disappeared from the national agenda.)
The regime will not be missed. It was far from popular with councils, which were particularly critical of an inspection process they saw as adding little value but increasing bureaucracy and expense. But will its replacement the CPA be any better? Some of the pathfinders, chosen to pilot the corporate assessment part of the process, were not optimistic after being visited by assessors in the past few months
Public Finance understands there have been heated discussions between assessors and pathfinders over the content of draft corporate assessments. With the whole on-site assessment taking just eight days over two weeks, there have been concerns over the way conclusions seem to be based on anecdotal evidence. In one council, managers believed that the self-assessment process sold as a major part of the overall system had very little influence on the assessors, some of whom seemed to have preconceived views when they arrived on site.
The commission claims that 80% of the responses to the first consultation paper on the CPA were `broadly supportive' of its approach. But it also claims to have listened to councils' fears and learnt lessons from the pathfinders. This week's consultation paper gives details of the new-look system. And, as Public Finance reported last week, there are already concerns that the changes are not far-reaching enough.
The dumping of the labels of `high performing', `striving', `coasting' and `poor performing' was being trailed before this week's document and will be welcomed as a step in the right direction. Under the old proposals, a council with poor services but which was expected to improve could have been scored as `striving', while a council with good services but no capacity to improve could have been rated as `coasting' seemingly pegging it below a council with worse services.
While the proposal for four (or five) new bands `excellent', `good', `fair', (`weak') and `poor' arguably introduces a stronger link between current performance and overall rating, many authorities would have preferred a more sensitive scoring system. The Local Government Association remains unhappy with the proposal to use a single assessment. `We'd prefer to rely on a Best-Value-style, two-part score,' says Matthew Warburton, head of futures at the LGA.
Within the CPA process, there are separate mechanisms to score the capacity to improve (through the corporate assessment process) and current performance (through service inspections and performance indicators). But the LGA believes the final step of producing an overall, consumer-friendly, one-word assessment is a meaningless step too far.
The other apparent change to the CPA process is the introduction of a service category on `use of resources'. As reported before (Best Value monitor, April 26May 2), financial and audit performance were always major components of the CPA.
The decision to create the new service category and widen it out to look at aspects of the use of financial, capital and human resources is a formal recognition of the crucial role finance has to play in overall performance assessment.
And while we are thinking about the use of resources, it is worth mentioning the other concern emerging out of the pathfinders. Although the assessment process is supposed to be `resource neutral' in terms of audit and inspection fees, councils say it has cost them dearly for both the preparation and the assessment itself.
Alarm bells are already ringing in the smaller district councils, which face this process next year. For councils that win greater flexibilities and less inspection as a result of the CPA, the expenditure may be worthwhile. But how many can bank on achieving such a good result?
PFjun2002
