Interviews

The most efficient part of the public sector

How can councils help each other to deliver services in a better and more affordable way, since the demise of the national inspection regimes? Cllr Peter Fleming, chair of the LGA Improvement board, talks to PSE.

Government has long tried to improve council performance through central intervention, prescribing action and introducing multiple targets. But has this approach been successful in the past and is it viable for the future?

Chair of the Local Government Association (LGA) Improvement Board, Cllr Peter Fleming, set out the case for a sector-led programme of support and development. He told PSE: “We’ve had two inspection regimes which were very top-down and centrally dictated; the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA), followed by the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA).

“It was thought that while they had some value, the real value would be in a sector-led approach where councils were looking at each other, trying to find best practice and work through some of the massive issues that we had.”

This approach is also “fundamentally cheaper”, he said – the former assessment regime cost around £1bn.

Corporate peer challenge

The LGA runs corporate peer challenges, directed by the council, carried out by a team of councillors and officers from other areas of the country. The team produces a report, which helps local authorities to think about the future, and any areas where they can move forwards, or could require extra support.

He said: “It’s not inspection; it’s more of a sector-led approach around how we improve local government using tools that we know work.”

The Government retains the ultimate option of ‘going in’ with a ministerial direction, but the new approach is able to demonstrate outcomes, which as Fleming points out, “is what politicians are after”.

The challenges are subject to “constant evaluation”, as Fleming explained: “We’re looking at the programme as it is running but we’ll also probably have a big download at the end, looking at the challenges that we’ve done, which will probably shape the resources we give going into the future.”

Not a replacement

But the new approach is not a substitute for inspection, and parts of local government are still subject to various inspectorates, such as the CQC and Ofsted.

“We’re looking at broader council services,” he said. “There was an understanding by this Government, and Bob Neill when he was minister, that ministerial intervention – the old way of doing things when a council got into difficulty – didn’t actually work. It meant that you were trying to run a council from Westminster and it wasn’t terribly successful. There were commissioners in place, it was hugely intensive, but the outcomes weren’t brilliant.”

Following this, the LGA made an offer to help councils to help each other, by sharing expertise across the sector. Peer reviews aim to strike the balance between challenging the existing system, and offering the support of experience of the issues councils all face.

“It’s not the old inspection regime. It is in a more supportive bubble but the reality is it’s still challenging, but with people who know the challenges that are facing local government, rather than from outside it.”

‘Doing things differently – we don’t have a choice’

The success of local government has been recognised as “the most efficient part of the public sector”, Fleming said, and cited high levels of reduction in spending over the last ten years.

“Local government as a whole has got itself into that space which is about constant improvement, innovation, seeing how we can do things differently. And now we’re in a period where we don’t have a choice.”

For those “stragglers who may not have needed to do things differently”, Fleming said: “It’s helpful to have a sector which can support councils on what will be a really difficult journey.”

The three-year corporate peer review programme is currently underway, with around 60 councils covered in the first year, around 100 planned this year and “in excess of 150” the following year.

“That will be pretty much every council having a review over that period, helping to embed some of those cultures around improvement and more importantly, innovation.

“There are some really good stories about how the sector can get itself together quickly, it knows what its going in to support and challenge some of the orthodoxies that are in place, in a supportive way.”

Armchair auditing

There is also work to support residents in accessing up-to-date information on their council compared with other similar – not just geographically close – authorities.

“It’s about making sure that information is presented in a way that residents can use meaningfully.”

Fleming described criticism from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) about how that programme was held to account. Despite a minority of so-called ‘armchair auditors’, there were plenty of people who would be interested in how their services rate against those of other councils, he said.

“Councils will be asking their communities pretty tough questions about what local government looks like in the future. It’s always dangerous to make decisions with information that you don’t understand; that’s a really important part of what we do.”

Rebuilding bureaucracy?

Whilst much of the bureaucracy faced by councils has been cut, Fleming was keen to point out the danger of excess inspection and regulation.

Considering the abolition of the Audit Commission, he said: “The issue for us is potential mission creep by the PAC and NAO. I think NAO has been very careful about what they’re saying. We would resist them becoming a replacement for the Audit Commission, there’s a reason why that’s going; it’s hugely costly if we’re looking at what outcomes that had for local authorities.”

On PAC, he reiterated that local authorities were independent from scrutiny that “follows the pound all the way to the end recipient”.

“I would be concerned that we would rebuild a very bureaucratic system for local authorities that doesn’t deliver outcomes, costs a lot of money and takes a lot of resources at a time when councils don’t have a lot of money and their resources are stretched.”

A different landscape

However, there is plenty of work on safeguarding for children and adult social care with independent bodies looking at how local government is performing on these key and higher risk areas.

“I don’t think anybody’s arguing there shouldn’t be regulation in children’s safeguarding and adult social care – but I think the Government is beginning to understand that the new landscape of local government will mean there is difference around the country, and the idea that every single local authority will deliver the same services at the same level going forward is a fantasy.”

Councils will have to have “really tough” conversations with their communities about what matters most. Instead of starting with existing services and considering which should be cut, he suggested that it could be more like starting with a blank piece of paper and starting with services that are most important.

“Fundamentally, local government will not look the same in a year, 18 months, five years – it will be very different. A lot of councils are now moving to a different method of engaging with the community.

“Government needs to understand they can’t point at a council and say ‘You aren’t providing the same services as the one next to you’, because it may well be that they’re willing to give something up to keep something else.”