20 May 2005
Ealing council has accepted defeat in its battle to overturn its 'weak' rating in the Comprehensive Performance Assessment, after the Audit Commission won a Court of Appeal ruling this week.
Lawyers for the watchdog have reversed an earlier High Court ruling that it was unlawful to label the London borough 'weak' automatically because it had received a zero-star rating from the Commission for Social Care Inspection.
That ruling was delivered in February, when Ealing successfully argued that the local government inspectorate had fettered its decision-making powers by relying on the judgements of other watchdogs to compile last December's CPA league tables.
But the Appeal Court judges, handing down their ruling on May 16, disagreed and concluded the commission's policy 'did not constitute any unlawful delegation of its decision making power'.
Ealing's categorisation was the result of the rules-based approach the inspectorate takes in the CPA, whereby any council that scores zero for its health or education services cannot be ranked higher than 'weak' overall.
The revised CPA methodology, due to be unveiled in June after months of consultations with authorities, takes a similar approach and would have been thrown into disarray if the commission had lost its appeal.
Chief executive Steve Bundred said it was in 'the wider interests of local government' that the original ruling had been struck out.
'We have maintained throughout that the decision of the lower court was legally flawed and if allowed to stand would require us to second guess the decisions of other inspectorates within the CPA framework,' Bundred added.
'We will now be able to introduce our planned improvements to CPA, which combine a tougher test of local authority performance with a reduced burden on inspected bodies and taxpayers.'
After the judgment, Ealing confirmed that it would not contest the ruling although its new leader, Leonora Thomson, said the authority was 'very disappointed' with it.
'It must be remembered that Ealing council has moved a very long way since the original CPA decision was made last year,' she added.
'Since last year we have also been working hard to develop positive relationships with inspectorate bodies.
'We now have a new corporate board in place, a new chief executive and a new political leadership and very hard-working staff, all of whom will continue the work to deliver better services to our residents and customers.'
PFmay2005
