By David Williams
21 February 2011
Ministers’ efforts to reduce centrally imposed data and reporting requirements are disappointing, the Local Government Association said today.
The LGA was responding to the consultation on a suggested single list of data sets for councils to submit to Whitehall.
The consultation, launchedlate last year by the Department for Communities and Local Government, is part of the government’s plan to replace centralised inspection and the associated national indicator set with a lighter-touch system.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles had said that the proposed single list of data requirements would keep government demands to a minimum.
But the LGA said today: ‘We are disappointed at the reductions proposed so far and remain unconvinced about the extent of the government’s ambition to minimise the reporting burdens it imposes.’
Its submission argues that Pickles’ single list is not comprehensive as it excludes requirements from arm’s-length bodies and extra potential burdens from ‘transparency’ measures and other policies under consideration.
The LGA also criticised ministers for not allowing enough time to respond to the consultation, and for not making clear the nature of some information required, or why it was necessary.
The submission says the government’s aim to produce a final reduced list of data requirements by 2011 is ‘not achievable’ and that a ‘fundamental debate about the nature of accountability’ is needed. The LGA suggests that ministers cut data reporting demands in the short term, and carry out a fundamental review of the issue, to be implemented by April 2012.
David Parsons, chair of the LGA improvement board, said: ‘Councils cannot afford to waste money and staff hours collecting and reporting information which disappears into a black hole of central government bureaucracy.
‘With councils being asked to become more efficient in response to significant cuts to the budgets, we need swift action rather than warm rhetoric.’
Parsons also noted that, although the coalition government had cut 45 data requirements it had announced 18 new ones.
