22 August 2003
Just 23% of council chief executives and 30% of leaders are satisfied with the freedoms and flexibilities granted to excellent authorities under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment regime, new research has shown.
The high level of dissatisfaction with the new powers, which are an incentive for authorities to improve services, has been revealed in a survey commissioned by the Local Government Association from pollsters Mori.
The level of dissatisfaction was similar among authorities across all five performance categories.
This suggests that the freedoms given to top performers, such as a drastic reduction in the number of plans produced, a three-year inspection holiday and greater power to allocate resources, are unlikely to be the carrot for other authorities that ministers hoped.
LGA chair Sir Jeremy Beecham said that, while authorities had found many aspects of the CPA helpful, government action was needed on this issue. 'The survey strongly reinforces our belief that the CPA would be more effective if councils' high performance and improvement properly triggered greater freedom and flexibility,' he said.
'Unless government is able to deliver more freedom more quickly, the goodwill and momentum councils have displayed will be lost.'
Simon Milton, leader of Westminster City Council, an excellent-rated authority, said there was widespread 'frustration' among councils at the lack of progress on the issue.
'The expected quid pro quo with the CPA was that we would be given significant flexibilities to manage our councils according to local need,' Milton said. 'The government still has a stranglehold on policy, and it is very bureaucratic to get anything done. If you go to them with anything the answer is always no.'
But Jeremy Taylor, chief executive of Cheshire County Council, also an excellent-rated authority, said the freedoms and flexibilities had made a significant difference.
'The freedom from producing plans has been a huge change and freed up a lot of capacity. I do not feel that I'm boxed in, in the way that I was a year ago,' he said. 'The government is taking this seriously.'
Overall, 77% of chief executives said the CPA was a 'fruitful' exercise, with the self-assessment exercise being singled out for particular praise.
But there is a widespread feeling that the inspection regime does not sufficiently recognise local priorities and circumstances: 53% of chief executives and 40% of leaders say this is the case. It was identified as the most important change that must be made for the future: 74% and 87% respectively calling for the problem to be addressed.
David Prince, director of strategy and resources at the Audit Commission, which oversees CPA inspections, said: 'We welcome the finding that the vast majority of councils found the CPA useful and challenging - and that it helps improvement… We will study the report in detail to help refine the process.'
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