25 October 2002
The Audit Commission will not take into account local authorities' financial resources or levels of deprivation when grading them under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment, it has confirmed.
Joanna Killian, the commission's CPA project co-ordinator, said the watchdog did not believe there was a direct relationship between an authority's financial position, the social problems it had to tackle and its overall performance. But she did not rule out these factors being considered in subsequent years.
Addressing a Local Government Association conference on October 21, Killian said: 'There are councils doing well with limited resources. There are also well-resourced councils that are failing. There is no distinct correlation between performance and resources.
'We're not at this point going to weight or give extra support to those councils that have articulated the view that they have less money than the council next door.'
The decision drew immediate criticism from the Local Government Information Unit, whose members include 150 councils. Its director, Dennis Reed, told Public Finance that the commission needed a 'reality check'.
He added: 'The commission is burying its head in the sand if it thinks that the make-up of local populations does not have an impact on how councils deliver services. In denying that deprivation has an impact, they further damage the credibility of the CPA process.'
The Audit Commission also unveiled the finalised CPA framework this week after months of negotiations with the LGA. It confirmed that councils would be graded as 'poor', 'weak', 'fair', 'good' or 'excellent', despite the LGA's preference for star ratings.
But the commission has responded to LGA pressure to give greater weighting to education and social services than other service blocks when calculating the score. It will also use one overall mark for social services, rather than separate children's and adult services.
The rules for categorising authorities have also been clarified. No council that is failing either in social services, education or financial management will score higher than 'weak', while no council will be judged 'excellent' if any one of its service blocks is failing.
Commission controller Sir Andrew Foster said the CPA was a 'robust mechanism'. He added: 'We have consulted widely and, where there is good cause, changed our approach.'
Neil Kinghan, the LGA's director of economic policy, told PF: 'It's not important where authorities come in a league table, but it is important that the CPA is seen as part of achieving improvements right across local government.'
PFoct2002
