Scrap CAA to improve councils, says report

Author: NewStart - Feb 2, 2010

The Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) and its predecessor have both failed to improve local government performance leading to a ‘culture of compliance’, according to think tank Localis.

For good measure: Devolving accountability for performance and assessment to local areas suggests local government performance would be improved, bureaucracy costs reduced and accountability to local people enhanced if councils opted out of the CAA.

The think tank calls for a ‘new kind of state’ based on the cornerstones of local authorities taking more power from central government and fostering an environment of citizen activism.

Citing current compliance costs of £2bn, Localis instead foresees a vision where ‘the tools for a new wave of citizen-led participation will have been given to local residents’.

Chief executive James Morris said: ‘Local authorities are more accountable to central government than to their residents. Without doubt, this has been a contributing factor in the disengagement of local people.

‘The new system we propose can turn this underwhelming system of performance and assessment on its head.’

The report’s key recommendations include:

• The CAA to become optional and councils actively encouraged to opt out, with councils still auditing their financial accounts and conducting self assessments but choosing their own measures to drive up performance.

• Councils to release more data to residents, including all financial expenditure over £500 and attendance record, declared interests and voting record information about elected local officials.

• Any increase in local accountability tempered by an increase in power from central to local government to avoid undermining the case for localism.

• The 25 indicators not selected by any council in their Local Area Agreements dropped from the National Indicator Set and the remainder subject to a rigorous check based on factors including public interest.

Report author Tom Shakespeare added: ‘The need for local government to be freed from central targets has never been greater. Now is the perfect time to re-think how to radically improve the public sector, improving performance and saving significant sums of money in the process.’