The UK Experience by Malcolm Morley *
Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA), a central government system of evaluating the performance of Councils, has been carried out for all 150 Unitary and County Councils in England. District Councils are just about to commence their CPA.
Of the 150 Councils already assessed, 22 were found to be Excellent, 54 Good, 40 Fair, 21 Weak and 13 Poor. Those Councils that have been assessed as performing in the higher categories will receive greater freedoms and a reduced inspection burden. Those Councils that have been assessed as performing less well will be subject to greater attention and support.
A major proposed outcome of the CPA is the opportunity for Councils to learn from each other to ensure that individual Councils continue to improve their performance, and that the overall average performance of all Councils improves.
A review of this first tranche of CPA inspections has been undertaken by the Audit Commission (www.audit-commission.gov.uk), which has revealed that Councils perform well when they have the following.
- Political leadership that focuses on change and continuous improvement, where the leadership is prepared to make, and stick to, tough decisions even in politically sensitive areas.
- Strong community leadership based on community engagement for local priorities.
- Consistent partnership strategies with clear frameworks for managing performance, that support shared priorities and link to budget setting.
- Effective people management focusing staff energies and skills to deliver Council objectives.
- A procurement strategy based on a well developed mixed economy approach.
- An understanding of local communities with the identification of the evolving needs of those communities.
It is no surprise that these fundamental building blocks for local democracy and management have been identified as being required for Councils to perform well. Of real concern is the fact that a significant number of Councils hadn’t realised that they were deficient in such fundamental areas!
Before Councils can learn to improve they must first know themselves. CPA has sought to encourage Councils to do this by introducing Self Assessment (SA). SA requires a Council to answer the following four simple questions.
- What is the Council trying to achieve?
- How has the Council set about delivering its priorities?
- What has the Council achieved to date?
- In the light of what the Council has learnt, what does it plan to do next?
It seems so straightforward, and I’m sure that an internal team of staff could produce answers very quickly. The problem is that if staff answer these questions they often substitute their internal perception for external reality. If this happens it is unlikely that Councils will really get to know themselves at all!
The only way that Councils can really know themselves is to get an external perspective to inject some reality. This takes leadership with the willingness to listen and to hear. All Councils should ask their partners and the communities they serve the above questions. What sort of answers to the questions do you think that your Council would receive? The next step is to then do something about it – that’s when internal perspectives really come into play!
