Comprehensive Performance Assessments

[Bob Adsett <bob.adsett@blueyonder.co.uk>]

I'm sorry to report but here we go again, today the UK Government has
announced yet another improvement initiative. Stymied by their inability to
secure the improvements desired in public service before the next general
election using the Best Value appraisals, they have now resorted to pursuing
a naming and shaming approach to quality improvement.

The UK Audit Commission  named the first 10 councils that will undergo a
comprehensive new inspection aimed at creating the first league table of
local government performance in England. The inspections, known as
"comprehensive performance assessments", will look at a council's finances,
the strength of its senior management and the quality of its services. The
commission will use the assessments to produce a "report card" for every
council in the country, providing voters with a snapshot of their local
authority's overall performance. The assessments will also be used to sort
councils into one of four new league table categories: high performing;
striving; coasting; and poor performing, with the  first report cards will
be issued by early May (no coincidence that we have local council elections
in early May!). 

Failing to learn from the debacle in the National Health Service before last
Christmas where targets claimed by some hospital Trusts for their
performance were found to be fabricated, the Audit Commission controller Sir
Andrew Foster says of the new regime: "This marks the beginning of an
entirely new way of judging councils. With report cards, local people will
be able to see very easily how their authority performs."  The assessments
will judge how well a council is performing against the government's set of
about 100 performance indicators (or MBO targets to the better informed).
Why don't these senior Civil Servants realise that measures of productivity
do not automatically lead to improvement in productivity.

Apparently the "corporate assessments" will start with councils assessing
their own performance, followed by a visit from a five-strong team of
commission representatives, a councillor and a chief local government
officer. Councils ranked as "high performing" will win a light-touch
Whitehall inspection regime , more control over their budgets and more
freedom to trade(the Carrot). In contrast, those ranked in the lowest
category will be exposed to tough government directions and face the
possibility of ministerial intervention (the Stick).

Matthew Warburton, head of strategy at the Local Government Association,
said "We hope that the process can be done with the minimum of bureaucracy
and unnecessary work." this draws a resounding 'no comment' with eyes turned
heavenwards.

According to a report in the Guardian Newspaper: The commission believes
that up to 20% of councils could be struggling, raising the prospect of more
than 80 local authorities being ranked as poor performers. However, Paul
Kirby, head of the Best Value inspection service, says that the
comprehensive performance assessment will also help boost public confidence
in local government. "The key thing for us," he says, "is that in a
corporate assessment of all councils, there is just as much likelihood that
there will be as big a number of top performing councils [as failing ones]."

Really Mr Kirby, sounds to me like a normal distribution, or in the
world inhabited by Best Value maybe the laws of nature do not apply, but one
thing is clear 50% of councils assessed will be below average!.

My sympathies and condolences go out to Bolton, Camden (north London),
Havering (east London), Hertfordshire, Kent, Leeds, Telford and Wrekin,
Wigan, Wiltshire, Windsor and Maidenhead as the pathfinders for this new
'improvement' initiative.

Bob Adsett