Internal performance management is a much better way to monitor council
services than external inspection, so the scrapping of an assessment method that made councils more accountable to central government than their residents was greeted with great delight.
By abolishing the Comprehensive Area Assessment, the new coalition
administration removed the huge bureaucratic and financial burden the last
government had imposed on local authorities. At the same time it confirmed our long-held view that if councils are being run properly and their governance arrangements are sound, they should be allowed to performance manage themselves.
Councils can now focus on delivering quality services for their residents
and businesses rather than responding to the whims of national government. They can drive improvement and deliver value for money rather than preparing for unnecessary and costly external inspections.
In other words local authorities have been given the freedom to go their
own way rather than being forced to follow the Whitehall way. Now, instead
of relying on pre-arranged external inspections that intermittently tell us
how we're faring, we are the masters of our own destiny.
In Surrey, performance management does not revolve around a technical
system based on imposed targets and indicators. It acts as our local ‘eyes
and ears’ to inform the decisions we make based on what is important to our
residents.
Under our system, a council-wide quarterly ‘business’ scorecard for the
Cabinet has been introduced. It sets out the latest data and forecasts on
finance and our workforce while also letting us gauge feedback from
residents.
This builds on the monitoring arrangements and scorecards that are used
within directorates that report in even more detail on performance,
allowing staff to see how they fit into the big picture.
We have introduced quarterly accountability meetings that enable the
leader, chief executive and myself to probe organisational issues with each
Cabinet member. This gives us the chance to discuss in detail how agreed
objectives are being delivered, pinpoint where problems and opportunities
lie and link up portfolios with issues of common interest.
In addition, a three-year programme of public value reviews was launched 12 months ago to shine a light on everything the council does with the aim of ensuring local taxpayers are getting absolute value for money. The first
year of the programme, we identified savings of almost £23 million to be delivered over the next four years. Another 13 services are currently being reviewed and many more will follow.
Our approach is continually being reviewed and revised in the light of our
experiences and in September the Cabinet will consider a report
recommending how the council can build on its approach so that performance and quality management is truly being done the Surrey way.
In the current economic climate all public funds have to work as hard as
possible, so I am sure councils up and down the country will join me in
saying good riddance to the CAA. The money freed up can now be used to
support the services people value the most and to keep council tax down for
taxpayers.
David Hodge is deputy leader of Surrey County Council
