As the great and the good in the film world met to hand out the Academy Awards at the 79th Oscars ceremony in Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre last week, the stars of local government were still revelling in the after-glow of the latest Comprehensive Performance Assessment Results (CPA).
The real story behind the 2006 results is the collective success of local government, as opposed to individual authorities doing well, with four-fifths of councils achieving a three or four-star rating, a 9% improvement on 2005 and, for the first time in CPA history, no-one in the bottom category.
This adds further credence to what many local authority supporters have believed for some time – that the sector is high performing, continuously improving, and is the area of public services which demonstrates the greatest degree of value for money.
The independent Audit Commission states that 77% of councils are improving strongly or improving well.
Instead of famous actors and actresses such as Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren celebrating reaching the top of their chosen profession, it is council leaders and chief executives who are rejoicing.
I dare say, there will be a few thank you speeches made in town halls across the country but, hopefully, these will not turn out to be in weeping actress Gywneth Paltrow-style, since local government is more comfortable discussing a different type of tiers. Most members of the public only remember the few high-profile category winners in the Oscars, and usually, the many technical areas go unnoticed.
One of this year’s big success stories is in environmental services, where 84% of authorities are now in the top two categories, as opposed to 52% in 2005. The main political parties recognise the neighbourhood and quality of life agenda as a key voter issue and once again, it is those on the frontline of public services who have delivered the ‘bang for the buck’ with regard to government investment.
So, now the parties have finished and the glad rags have been put away, it’s back to business. If local government wants to repeat its success, then it has a lot of work to do to meet the challenges posed by the White Paper.
Particular issues I am interested in are, how local government can enhance service-users’ experience by more individually-tailored choice with scarce resources, improved citizen engagement at the point of use, maintaining competitiveness, and community ownership within a facilitated framework.
If we can answer some of these tricky questions, then the latest set of results may not turn out to be a false dawn, and just as Hollywood applauded movie director Martin Scorsese with his work, The Departed, we can celebrate local governments’ arrival. n
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