By David Scott in Edinburgh
8 October 2009
Scotland’s local authority spending watchdog is to press ahead with its revised performance assessment regime after a majority of councils backed the changes.
Audit Scotland will now draw up detailed proposals on how the new programme – the latest phase of the Best Value audit system – will operate.
It will include performance judgements that will focus on ‘direction and pace of change’ and ‘capacity for future improvement’.
In a paper assessing the results of the consultation on the changes, Audit Scotland said the responses broadly supported the proposals, with 57% ‘for’ and 11% ‘against’. Twenty-one per cent neither agreed nor disagreed. There is likely to be a grading system in which ‘pace’ and ‘direction of travel’ will range from ‘improving strongly’ to ‘not improving adequately’.
Judgements on a council’s prospects for improvement will range from ‘strongly placed’ to ‘poorly placed’.
Three options were put forward for reporting performance. The majority of councils and other bodies responding (64%) supported option 2, the proposal that will allow the introduction of a grading system.
‘The challenge of this option would be creating a series of definitions that can effectively balance local circumstances and varying levels of service and corporate performance in ways that are not oversimplistic and reductive,’ the report said.
It added that, given the preference for option 2, Audit Scotland would be looking into this in more detail.
‘This is likely to involve the setting out of a clear set of performance characteristics that we would expect councils to demonstrate in each of the assessment domains,’ it said.
The chair of the Accounts Commission, John Baillie, said it was encouraged by the broad support for the overall direction of travel set out in the initial proposals. Further discussions would be held with local authority and chief officer bodies on how the plans would be developed.
8 October 2009
Scotland’s local authority spending watchdog is to press ahead with its revised performance assessment regime after a majority of councils backed the changes.
Audit Scotland will now draw up detailed proposals on how the new programme – the latest phase of the Best Value audit system – will operate.
It will include performance judgements that will focus on ‘direction and pace of change’ and ‘capacity for future improvement’.
In a paper assessing the results of the consultation on the changes, Audit Scotland said the responses broadly supported the proposals, with 57% ‘for’ and 11% ‘against’. Twenty-one per cent neither agreed nor disagreed. There is likely to be a grading system in which ‘pace’ and ‘direction of travel’ will range from ‘improving strongly’ to ‘not improving adequately’.
Judgements on a council’s prospects for improvement will range from ‘strongly placed’ to ‘poorly placed’.
Three options were put forward for reporting performance. The majority of councils and other bodies responding (64%) supported option 2, the proposal that will allow the introduction of a grading system.
‘The challenge of this option would be creating a series of definitions that can effectively balance local circumstances and varying levels of service and corporate performance in ways that are not oversimplistic and reductive,’ the report said.
It added that, given the preference for option 2, Audit Scotland would be looking into this in more detail.
‘This is likely to involve the setting out of a clear set of performance characteristics that we would expect councils to demonstrate in each of the assessment domains,’ it said.
The chair of the Accounts Commission, John Baillie, said it was encouraged by the broad support for the overall direction of travel set out in the initial proposals. Further discussions would be held with local authority and chief officer bodies on how the plans would be developed.
