Council performance measures set for autumn launch

25 May 12
Councils will be able to compare their residents’ satisfaction levels against those living in other authorities from this autumn, the Local Government Association has revealed.
By Richard Johnstone | 25 May 2012

Councils will be able to compare their residents’ satisfaction levels against those living in other authorities from this autumn, the Local Government Association has revealed.

The umbrella group of authorities is set to launch an expanded version of its Local Government Inform scheme, which it says will help councils make better comparisons with other areas.

Inform currently allows authorities to compare their performance on items that the sector is required to submit to central government. Following the termination of the Audit Commission’s inspection work, the LGA has been working to increase the range of data collected and further help councils gauge their performance.

An LGA spokeswoman told Public Finance that authorities will volunteer to submit any information to the expanded programme, and discussions are ongoing to decide what indicators should be included. The data would then be made available to councils to help them better manage their performance.

As part of the programme, the LGA undertook a consultation, which ended last month, on an agreed set of questions for authorities’ to include in local satisfaction surveys. The spokeswoman said: ‘We hope to come out with suggested questions for authorities to use and be able to compare with others.’

Also under consideration is data on employee sickness and absence, which has been collated centrally in the past and is still produced in a similar form by many authorities.

The spokeswoman said the next step would be to respond to the consultation on standard survey questions, and seek to reach agreement over the summer, following responses from more than 120 authorities.

‘I think it will certainly allow comparison between a large number of authorities,’ she added, but the extent of involvement in each measure would be determined by each council’s ‘local priorities’.

‘Given that we know authorities are giving 43,000 items to central government, they don’t want to give many more to the LGA. For those that are useful they will, and some will be more useful to some authorities than others.’

Although in the first instance councils themselves will use the data, the aim is for it to be opened to the public, she added.

It is also intended that authorities will be able to get early access to the data they are still required to submit to Whitehall departments, to compare performances.

The spokeswoman said: ‘It won’t have the same quality assurance [as it will when its published by government], but it will allow authorities to see very early on how their performance is relating to others, rather than waiting one year before its too late to do anything about it.’

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