29 September 2009
Flagging-up the CAA challenge
Robert Hill
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Robert Hill looks at the arrival of the new Comprehensive Area Assessments and what could follow, should the Conservatives win next year’s general election.
The first draft Comprehensive Area Assessments (CAA) are arriving in the inboxes of chief executives – informing them of how many red and green ‘flags’ their area has been awarded.
Green indicates exceptional performance or outstanding improvement in delivering a service or addressing a local issue, while red signals significant concerns about outcomes and future prospects.
So, what will be the reaction to all the flag-waving? In the recent LGA survey, almost two-thirds of authorities agreed that the CAA had focused on the highest priorities for their area – even though CAA was not leading to a reduction in the inspection burden.
But will councils and local strategic partnerships (LSPs) use CAA results to up their game? Or will they just give the whole enterprise the cold shoulder because CAA may be here today but will be gone tomorrow, when the Tories win the general election?
Before council leaders and chief executives put out the flags and celebrate its abolition, they might like to reflect on what could come after CAA.
Is a new Conservative Government going to stop inspection of children’s services – especially after Baby Peter? Surely not. The political and policy risk of doing this would be huge, especially if another such child abuse case was to surface.
Will inspection of adult social care disappear? I doubt it, given that protection of vulnerable adults is involved.
Will inspection of police authorities be abandoned? Again, the answer must surely be, no. Also, remember that Ofsted and the police inspectorate are headed by Her Majesty’s chief inspector – a status which signifies independence, and by which the post holders place great store.
The role and scope of the Audit Commission might be scaled back. But at a time when public spending is under the cosh and efficiency is high on the agenda, it would make no sense to dispense with the commission’s focus on value for money and use of resources.
So, the main pillars of the inspection regime look likely to stay. It would, of course, be perfectly possible to leave these building blocks in place and abolish national performance indicators, the place survey and area assessment.
That would certainly ease the accountability burden, and alter the dynamics of the central-local relationship.
However, David Cameron’s Conservatives have promised to empower local people to hold their local public services to account. They envisage performance information, such as crime mapping and satisfaction levels with local public services, being made available online in a way that is relevant to each locality.
It’s a potentially powerful and localist idea, but one surely has to do this in some sort of consistent format across the country. Local people – as well as politicians and managers – will want to see how their area compares with other localities, both within and outside their council boundaries. That could mean a requirement to publicise local performance data in a standardised way. National performance indicators may die – but in their place live common performance data sets.
So, if there are those who think that a change of government will lead to a return to an era when public agencies were entirely left to themselves to account to local people for what they did and how well they did it, they will be sorely disappointed. The name may change, the content could alter and the rules might be different, but accountability will still have a strong national dimension to it.
I suspect that some chief executives will, secretly, be relieved to hear this.
They find an external performance management regime is a useful tool which helps them to hold their directors and organisations to account, and drive change and improvement.
And, because there is an increasing recognition that the place agenda is here to stay, a growing number of councils like the way that CAA is giving them increased leverage over partner agencies to be more effective contributors to local partnerships.
The real debate on a post-CAA world should, therefore, not focus on the never-never land of no external or central accountability, but on how a system can be developed which better reflects local needs and priorities, and enables local people to make informed and rounded judgments on their place, compared with others.
Robert Hill is employed as an independent policy analyst
The first draft Comprehensive Area Assessments (CAA) are arriving in the inboxes of chief executives – informing them of how many red and green ‘flags’ their area has been awarded.
Green indicates exceptional performance or outstanding improvement in delivering a service or addressing a local issue, while red signals significant concerns about outcomes and future prospects.
So, what will be the reaction to all the flag-waving? In the recent LGA survey, almost two-thirds of authorities agreed that the CAA had focused on the highest priorities for their area – even though CAA was not leading to a reduction in the inspection burden.
But will councils and local strategic partnerships (LSPs) use CAA results to up their game? Or will they just give the whole enterprise the cold shoulder because CAA may be here today but will be gone tomorrow, when the Tories win the general election?
Before council leaders and chief executives put out the flags and celebrate its abolition, they might like to reflect on what could come after CAA.
Is a new Conservative Government going to stop inspection of children’s services – especially after Baby Peter? Surely not. The political and policy risk of doing this would be huge, especially if another such child abuse case was to surface.
Will inspection of adult social care disappear? I doubt it, given that protection of vulnerable adults is involved.
Will inspection of police authorities be abandoned? Again, the answer must surely be, no. Also, remember that Ofsted and the police inspectorate are headed by Her Majesty’s chief inspector – a status which signifies independence, and by which the post holders place great store.
The role and scope of the Audit Commission might be scaled back. But at a time when public spending is under the cosh and efficiency is high on the agenda, it would make no sense to dispense with the commission’s focus on value for money and use of resources.
So, the main pillars of the inspection regime look likely to stay. It would, of course, be perfectly possible to leave these building blocks in place and abolish national performance indicators, the place survey and area assessment.
That would certainly ease the accountability burden, and alter the dynamics of the central-local relationship.
However, David Cameron’s Conservatives have promised to empower local people to hold their local public services to account. They envisage performance information, such as crime mapping and satisfaction levels with local public services, being made available online in a way that is relevant to each locality.
It’s a potentially powerful and localist idea, but one surely has to do this in some sort of consistent format across the country. Local people – as well as politicians and managers – will want to see how their area compares with other localities, both within and outside their council boundaries. That could mean a requirement to publicise local performance data in a standardised way. National performance indicators may die – but in their place live common performance data sets.
So, if there are those who think that a change of government will lead to a return to an era when public agencies were entirely left to themselves to account to local people for what they did and how well they did it, they will be sorely disappointed. The name may change, the content could alter and the rules might be different, but accountability will still have a strong national dimension to it.
I suspect that some chief executives will, secretly, be relieved to hear this.
They find an external performance management regime is a useful tool which helps them to hold their directors and organisations to account, and drive change and improvement.
And, because there is an increasing recognition that the place agenda is here to stay, a growing number of councils like the way that CAA is giving them increased leverage over partner agencies to be more effective contributors to local partnerships.
The real debate on a post-CAA world should, therefore, not focus on the never-never land of no external or central accountability, but on how a system can be developed which better reflects local needs and priorities, and enables local people to make informed and rounded judgments on their place, compared with others.
Robert Hill is employed as an independent policy analyst
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