“The Audit Commission has delivered a technically skilled consultation report held back by Whitehall inertia.

“There is much to be commended in the consultation document. It brings regulators together in their assessment work, so reducing the pressure on local public services to focus on reporting upwards rather than delivering. It plots a course to end rolling inspection programmes, replacing them with triggered inspection where there are risks of poor performance. It plans to rely on performance data already in use by local public services.

“Yet the consultation also reports that while Corporate Assessment will end, the Use of Resources assessment has expanded. Judgement criteria in the new annual Area Risk Assessment leave open the risk that Government Offices and others will still be able to second guess delivery strategies at local level. Progress on integrating citizen opinions into assessment has been slow. Detailed aspects of CAA implementation, not yet described, may yet increase the burden of regulation”.

“These problems are the consequence of the central challenge faced by the Audit Commission; to deliver agreement between national regulators and their sponsoring departments. The result is more focus on re-assuring Whitehall and less progress on driving delivery of local choices”.

“That is the central lesson for local government. There is no point waiting for a national solution to local improvement. Councils should respond by designing their own alternative. To be credible that alternative should be more challenging than the current proposals; demanding successful outcomes, not just best efforts. It should give more weight to the local choices both those reflected in the Local Area Agreement regime and also to citizen views of local improvement.”