20 September 2002
A top-level meeting was due to take place between the Local Government Association and the town hall watchdog on September 19 to thrash out the details of the inspection framework and the collation of results.
But ahead of the meeting, being attended by LGA chair Sir Jeremy Beecham, LGA chief executive Sir Brian Briscoe and commission controller Sir Andrew Foster, it appeared that the two sides were close to agreement on a range of issues.
The commission has agreed to local authorities' demands to give the corporate assessments, the centrepiece of the process, a greater weighting when the overall performance 'score' is calculated.
Corporate assessments were intended to measure capacity to improve, but the commission now appears to accept the LGA's argument that corporate capability also has a major impact on current performance.
The commission's director of inspection, Paul Kirby, told Public Finance the assessments would be a key element of an authority's overall rating.
'An aggregate of the main service area scores will be taken. This will then be compared against the corporate assessment score, which will be marked from one to four, to reach the overall assessment.'
Matthew Warburton, the LGA's head of futures, told PF the two sides were 'not quite there yet', but was hopeful the meeting would close the gap.
'Corporate assessments not only measure capacity to improve, they also reflect local priorities and help us to understand a council's performance on cross-cutting issues,' he added.
But it has emerged that the proposed classifications – excellent, good, fair, weak and poor – may be replaced by star ratings running from one to five.
Kirby said there were fears that the public might not understand the categories. 'Our decision has to be about what communicates best to local government and service users.'
Progress has been made elsewhere on agreeing the weightings of each service block, with a commission proposal to give education and social services double the value of the others likely to win LGA approval.
Authorities have also been mollified by an assurance that they will be able to challenge the results of corporate assessments and service inspections before they are combined for the final rating. Many had been demanding a formal appeals process.
Before Thursday's meeting, Foster said both sides were engaging constructively. 'People are now focusing on the endgame and looking at how we can get the CPA right.'
PFsep2002
