10 December 2004
Comprehensive Performance Assessments will scrutinise councils' financial management much more rigorously from 2005 but the number of inspections will be slashed by two-thirds.
The Audit Commission is to create a separate 'use of resources' block, which will include an explicit value-for-money judgement and an assessment of the efficiency statement all councils must produce under the Gershon efficiency agenda.
The commission also plans a drastic reduction in service inspections, down from 400 in 2002/03 to just 140 in 2006/07. Authorities will be inspected only if their performance indicators suggest they are failing.
Otherwise, that information will be used to produce an annual service assessment and there will be no limit on the length of time services might go without inspection.
The proposals, published by the commission on December 9, outline the revised CPA methodology for top-tier authorities.
The education and social services blocks will be replaced with a children and young people's block and an adult social care block.
Ofsted will inspect children's services by conducting a Joint Area Review every three years, at the same time as the commission does its corporate assessment.
Joanna Killian, the commission's director of local government improvement and performance, said: 'We will visit at the same time and we hope the experience will be less burdensome for councils.'
Jenny Crighton, programme director at the Local Government Association, said the LGA backed the reforms in principle. She added: 'We don't know yet whether these will be joined-up efforts by Ofsted and the commission, or whether they will just be on site at the same time. The two are very different.'
Other changes include beefing up corporate assessments to measure authorities' partnerships with other organisations, judging their work on sustainable communities and health issues.
But authorities will no longer be able to request a new corporate assessment to move up a category. Instead, they will have to wait until it is due under a three-year rolling programme.
The commission also intends to introduce a 'direction of travel' statement to say whether a council is improving or failing, and is considering combining the 'weak' and 'poor' categories.
District councils, meanwhile, will be given an annual service profile and use of resources assessment. They will also be granted the right to request a corporate assessment.
PFdec2004
