There needs to be more transparency in local government

Last week, the Audit Commission released the first set of Comprehensive Area Assessments. This followed seven years of Comprehensive Performance Assessments that became increasingly time-consuming, expensive and irrelevant to local government and meant nothing to residents interested in knowing how well local public services in their area were being provided or could be improved.

Being released on the same day as the Pre-Budget Report meant that the CAA results got limited media attention. Those Councils like mine were happy to get top marks and it was good to see Conservative-run authorities dominating the high achievers. But, what really matters is not what a dragoon of government inspectors think but how local people rate local services whether delivered by the Council, Primary Care Trust or Police. This should be gauged through the ballot box but also the satisfaction surveys done every few years. In London, most of the CAA high-performers also got top resident satisfaction ratings in the Ipsos-Mori polling making one question how much more was gained from this part of CAA compared to the effort and cost.

Our policy, clearly stated in the Conservatives’ localism green paper (PDF file), is right to call time on these overbearing external inspections. Poor local public services cannot be ignored particularly when responsible for protecting the vulnerable but the mass of local services are satisfactory or better and should be held increasingly accountable by and to local people. Over the next years the effort put into jumping through hoops created by the variety of inspectors would be better devoted to finding better, more cost effective ways of providing essential local services.

However, one part of CAA has been a success and could well be the basis of increasing openness, accountability and service improvement by facing outward to residents rather than one branch of government passing judgement on another.

Oneplace is an interactive website that allows easy access to judgements of local services and priorities. More importantly, through the use of green and red flags, indicating outstanding and poor services you can easily see what success looks like. And if you live in an area with a red flag (“significant concern, action needed”) you can see clearly what the problem is and challenge local and national leadership to improve the service, ideally learning from those scoring green flags (“exceptional performance or innovation that others can learn from”) for the same services.

This is not all about pointing the finger at local services or politicians either. At random, I looked at a red flag for the Isles of Scilly for Waste, Sewerage and Water. The clear and concise assessment shows that there are “serious and immediate problems” with waste disposal and sewerage and that on some islands drinking water is not of the same standard as on the mainland. The local community cannot afford the necessary investment and there are ongoing discussions with Government. No obfuscation here with a graphic description of failing essential services where even the drinking water – a human right if ever there was one – is inferior to what the rest of us drink. Oneplace shines a light on a problem that cannot be ducked and such refreshing openness makes it less likely that it will be.

With the advent of Oneplace, local information is no longer hidden away in verbose reports. It can be easily searched to identify problems and solutions and those with responsibility can be held to account. Or indeed, those who have responded and sorted out problems or provide exemplar services can be given some credit.

For years, a cry has been how to identify “best practice” and spread the knowledge. With Oneplace this can now be easily done. But it has greater potential and should be developed to tracks clearly where public money is spent in a way that easily compares one area with another and provides far more detail than a simple list of bills paid.

With a firm commitment to pass power from the centre to the local, CAA the successor to CPA will have run its course. But Oneplace could provide true openness and accountability and drive up standards in local public services.

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