15 February 2002
Every major service area will be given a score and the results combined to produce a comprehensive performance assessment for each council. They will then be divided into four categories – high performing, striving, coasting and failing.
The new system will link the many inspections and audits councils currently have to undergo into a single process. It is hoped the reforms will tackle the widespread disaffection with the Best Value regime.
The details were outlined as the Audit Commission announced a pathfinder project it will run in conjunction with ten authorities – Bolton and Wigan metropolitan councils; the London boroughs of Camden and Havering; Hertfordshire, Kent and Wiltshire county councils; Leeds city council; Windsor and Maidenhead; and Telford and Wrekin council.
Commission controller Sir Andrew Foster said the new system would be worked out in consultation with authorities, and the pathfinder project would help do this. 'We didn't lay down how we would do this in tablets of stone, so that we could play to the strengths of the many forward-thinking people in local government,' he said.
Authorities will complete a self-assessment and a commission inspection team, expected to include a council chief executive and an elected member, will then conduct an inspection. This will have two elements: a service assessment, using performance data and auditors' findings; and a corporate assessment, to judge management structures. Afterwards, an action plan will be agreed with each authority.
The process is intended to take three months for each authority, and will be extended to district councils next year. Foster said the commission could manage this workload on existing resources, as the new system would integrate many of its existing activities and draw on work by other inspection agencies.
The Local Government Association gave the plans a muted welcome. Its chair, Sir Jeremy Beecham, warned the new system would have to focus on authorities' efforts to improve, rather than mere labels.
'These plans might not prove immediately popular with councils, but the new framework has the potential to help them deliver vital improvements,' he said. 'The publication process for the action plan is vital and must be simultaneous with that of the so-called scorecard. Otherwise it could well be seen as just another naming and shaming exercise.'
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