You may have heard about proposals made by the Centre for Public Scrutiny on local public accounts committees. The centre is keen to get feedback from finance professionals about these suggestions and a discussion paper can be found here.
Local public accounts committees would be bodies led by elected councillors, but would probably also involve other non-executives. They would be tasked with looking at value for money in the design, management and delivery of public services across a place.
The aim is to highlight cross-cutting issues, strengthen partnership working and clarify what can be complex area-wide governance arrangements in a way that increases public transparency.
The tight focus on value for money is designed to try to ensure that local public accounts committees would not duplicate oversight and accountability mechanisms in individual organisations.
The discussion paper covers the intersection with audit and CfPS is particularly keen to elicit views on this specific issue.
CfPS is looking for views as soon as possible before moving forward and refining its views, and would appreciate comments by close of play this Friday, 23 March.
Please contact Ed Hammond, CfPS Director of Research, on 020 3866 5109 or [email protected]