09 September 2005
The majority of district councils are not providing good services across the board, the local government watchdog said this week as it prepared to consult on a new inspection framework.
The Audit Commission is seeking views on how to take the Comprehensive Performance Assessment regime for districts forward and used the opportunity to release an analysis of first-round CPA scores for the 238 district councils in England.
It revealed that just 28 councils achieved an 'excellent' rating, while 86 were deemed 'good'. The remainder, just over half, were rated 'fair' (86), 'weak' (29) or 'poor' (9). Few councils provided universally good services and many still had much to do to achieve further improvements.
The September 6 report also highlighted some regional variations, with the highest proportion of good and excellent councils found in the Southeast.
By contrast, almost a quarter of councils in the Northeast were judged to be in serious need of improvement.
Audit Commission chief executive Steve Bundred said the overall picture was encouraging. 'There are three times as many good and excellent councils as there are poor and weak,' he said. 'Now we are looking to build on that with consultation on the second phase of CPA for district councils.'
Districts are being asked to consider five options on how the CPA regime can be taken forward. They fall into two broad categories.
Bundred said: 'The choice we're consulting on is whether we recategorise all 238 district councils, which has the merit of being easy to explain but has the considerable disadvantage of being costly and imposing a burden of regulation on councils, or only looking at those councils where there is a case for recategorisation. This is not as costly and is risk-based, but not all councils will be looked at.'
A Local Government Association spokesman said: 'The LGA is keen to ensure a performance assessment system for district councils that reduces excessive burdens and costs.'
The consultation period closes on November 30 and the Audit Commission hopes to publish the new district CPA framework in March.
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