Dr Jonathan Carr-West of the LGIU discusses the Local Government Outcomes Framework (LGOF), the latest instalment in the history of local government accountability.

A new acronym has entered the local government lexicon and not one that trips lightly off the tongue. The Local Government Outcomes Framework (LGOF) announced by Angela Rayner at this year’s LGA conference is the latest instalment in the chequered history of local government accountability.

It is also the latest in a revolving door of local government reforms, coming hard on the heels of reorganisation, devolution, and financial reform as proposed in the English Devolution White Paper and Fair Funding 2.0 consultation. Many in the sector have welcomed the Government’s attempts to tackle some of the long-standing issues councils face and the positive tone of their engagement.

Response to the LGOF will, however, require some careful consideration as there are immediate and obvious questions. Not least is the question of how – and if – these multiple reforms will knit together to create a strong and cohesive foundation from which local government can operate in the coming decades.

Priority Outcomes

There are 13 priority outcomes based around the ‘overarching areas of local authority responsibility and activity’ and two contextual outcomes – economic prosperity and regeneration and child poverty, which are ‘nationally important priorities that local authority activity contributes to’.

The Government’s view is that this Framework will allow local government autonomy and flexibility to deliver these – centrally imposed – priorities for their local areas. How much autonomy and flexibility still needs to be ascertained? It will be crucial to have clarity on how outcomes will be monitored and progressed.

Past approaches to performance management may have successfully driven up minimum standards, but it is the LGIU's view that they have also acted as a brake on local innovation and created a significant administrative burden. And the language coming out of Westminster still hints at a less than equal central/local relationship with the promise that ‘central government will still take firm action where there is failure’, but no indication of what that firm action will be.

The Framework also promises a shift away from siloed initiatives to more strategic joined-up approaches. A move to cross-departmental working in Whitehall and an emphasis on the necessity of partnership working across the different tiers of local government and different public services is to be welcomed, but as the Government acknowledges, it will not be quick or easy to achieve. Councils will have questions about working effectively within the Framework when strategic authorities are excluded from it.

Local Government Funding

And as always, the enormous multi-coloured elephant in the room is sustainable local government funding. The LGIU welcomed the consultation on fair funding last month. But although updating the funding formulae will help alleviate pressures across many councils with the highest relative need, a more fundamental rethink will be needed before local government finance is resilient across the country and sufficiently flexible to properly deliver on the ambitions behind LGOF. Inputs are, undeniably, important for ensuring outcomes.

From our annual State of Local Government Finance research, we know that adult social care, children’s services, and housing and homelessness are the three service areas putting the most pressure on council budgets. Together, these service areas account for eight of the priority outcomes, making the necessity for timely decisions about local government finance even more acute – if that were even possible.

The contextual outcomes – economic prosperity and child poverty – are the final two on the list, but their position at the end feels topsy-turvy. The trickle-down impact of progress on those outcomes – which the Government acknowledges is not within local government’s gift – would be significant for achieving success in the other 13 priority outcomes. The Government’s stated intention elsewhere, that we should move away from silos and towards strategic thinking, would require considering these different metrics as a complex system, where each outcome is inextricably linked to the others and where trade-offs and contextual factors will be key to understanding.

Equally, collecting these metrics should be seen in the context of what local governments can reasonably achieve and where central government intervention will be needed. For instance, on child poverty, a clear national priority and one of the contextual outcomes that local government will, rightly, be seen as one of the key figures in delivering, there is only so much local government can do without other significant, central government, policy change. Local government can develop local policies, practices and deliver services on a local level, but control over major welfare decisions – such as the two-child limit for universal credit – the kind of decision which could shift this particular contextual outcome, remain firmly outside of local government control. Measuring outcomes is important, but outcomes are just as often the joint responsibility of local and central government, and we can't pretend that local government can have a transformational effect without central government making the big decisions where only it has the power to.

Accountable to whom?

Measuring performance is important, but to get it right you must be certain you are doing it for the right reasons. Accountability, yes, to the Government, but more importantly accountability to the public. In designing and measuring performance first in our mind should always be the residents, electors, and service users who depend on local authorities to deliver on their priorities. And it is the public, not central government, who local government is ultimately accountable to.

These performance metrics will be at their most useful if they are geared towards ensuring the public can understand, follow and ultimately evaluate local government performance within context and vote accordingly. Just as they can be useful to ensure local governments have sufficient resources and autonomy to meet these ‘nationally important’ priorities to serve the public good. And useful for determining where local government can and cannot make a difference without additional central government support. Useful measurement is a tool for ensuring success, not for punishing failure.