By David Williams
26 January 2010
Councils are challenging their inspectors to reduce the financial burden of their work, warning that the current system cannot be sustained in a period of fiscal restraint.
They want a series of changes to the Comprehensive Area Assessment regime, now entering its second year.
In a report published this week, the Local Government Association points out that councils have to meet annual efficiency targets of 3%, which will rise to 4% in the next financial year. CAA evaluation: a sector perspective on year 1 argues that the six CAA regulators should release estimates for how much the cost of inspections will reduce in 2010.
Councils also want inspectors to focus on encouraging improvements to problems identified in the 2009 reports, and for a lighter-touch approach for highly rated authorities.
David Parsons, chair of the LGA’s improvement board, said: ‘At a time when the efficiency targets for councils are being increased, it is entirely reasonable for the inspectors of public services to be treated with the same rigour.
‘CAA is an ambitious approach… progress has been made in the first year but much more needs to happen in the coming months to prove it can save taxpayers' money and make a significant contribution to improvement.’
The January 25 report concludes: ‘The way we regulate and inspect public services is simply unaffordable in the current climate and it has to be reformed.’
A spokeswoman for the Audit Commission, which leads the CAA, said the regime’s second year would build on the results of the first year, and be ‘proportionate to risk and performance'.
The other five CAA regulators are: the Care Quality Commission, Oftsed and the inspectorates of constabulary, prisons and probation.
