Memorandum by The Audit Commission (VOT
46)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. The Audit Commission welcomes the opportunity
to contribute to the work of the joint inquiry. As requested,
this short note sets out how the Commission takes account in its
work of how local authorities fulfil their duties with respect
to electoral registration.
2. The Local Government Act 1999 gave responsibility
to the Audit Commission for inspecting local authority services.
Our approach to inspection has evolved and developed since that
date. Early inspections were carried out in response to local
authorities' own reviews of their services. Too often these focused
on narrowly defined service areas—such as inspections of
electoral registration services—when the biggest improvements
in performance are to be gained by focusing scarce resources in
a more strategic way.
3. The Commission's subsequent commitment
to Strategic Regulation requires us to maximise our impact on
improving public services through constructive challenge and by
spreading excellent practice, and to minimise the burden of regulation
by being proportionate to risk and need.
4. In local government, we achieve this
commitment to Strategic Regulation in part through our Comprehensive
Performance Assessments (CPAs) of local authorities. CPA pulls
together in a single framework the existing information on council
performance that is held by councils, government departments,
auditors and inspectors. It builds in a "corporate assessment"
of councils' ability to improve. CPA identifies the strengths
and capabilities of the council, as well as where more support
is needed.
5. CPA combines judgements about current
performance and about the council's ability to improve to form
an overall assessment of each council, placing them in one of
five categories: excellent, good, fair, weak or poor. These categories
and the underlying scores are publicly reported by the Audit Commission,
and are used as the basis for improvement planning and for targeting
audit and inspection resources where they can make most impact.
6. CPA has been a significant lever for
reducing the burden of regulation on councils. In 2002-03 the
Commission carried out more than 400 inspections in single tier
and county councils for CPA. We anticipate that our activity will
reduce further. For example, by 2006-07, the volume of inspections
needed for CPA, including the corporate assessments planned for
that year, should fall by 68% from the 2002-03 level.
7. As a result of this more strategic approach,
electoral registration is not a specific area of focus within
CPA, either in the service assessments or in the corporate assessment.
However, for every council, the Commission carries out a locally-based
assessment of key risks, and develops a combined audit and inspection
plan which focuses on those risks. If significant issues relating
to electoral registration were to be identified at the local level,
these could be picked up and addressed within the audit and inspection
plan. The Commission is not aware of any authority where this
is currently the case.
8. Finally, the Commission's auditors are
responsible for certifying money claimed by local authorities
for the costs of electoral registration and elections. Grant claim
certification focuses on identifying whether the money is being
correctly claimed to cover costs incurred.
INTRODUCTION
9. This note describes how the Audit Commission
originally approached the inspection of electoral registration
services when it first took on its best value inspection responsibilities
in 1999. The note then explains the current approach, which takes
a more risk-based and strategic approach to regulation. The note
finally sets out other ways in which the Commission currently
takes account of local authorities' electoral registration responsibilities
in its work.
EARLY INSPECTIONS
OF ELECTORAL
REGISTRATION SERVICES
10. Best value is a performance framework
for local government, introduced by the Local Government Act 1999.
It requires local authorities to deliver services to clear standards
by the most economic, efficient and effective means available.
Councils are expected to achieve continuous improvement in all
their services.
11. Under the legislation and accompanying
guidance, every council was expected to carry out a "best
value review" of each of its services—including electoral
registration services—every five years.
12. The same legislation gave powers to
the Audit Commission to inspect councils' compliance with the
duty to achieve continuous improvement. For the first year of
best value, the Commission fulfilled this responsibility by applying
broadly the same level of inspection and audit to all councils.
This "one size fits all" approach was an appropriate
ambition in the first year to set a baseline, and involved carrying
out an inspection following each best value review in every council.
Examples of early inspections of electoral registration services
included:
— Ryedale District Council Electoral
Services, February 2002;
— Royal Borough Kingston upon Thames
Electoral Services, May 2002.[1]
13. However, councils collectively carried
out an over-ambitious programme of 4,500 best value reviews in
the first year of best value. Early experience showed that too
many of these reviews were focused on very narrow service areas,
and that the biggest improvements in performance were to be gained
by focusing scarce resources on reviews that covered a number
of services, or focused on particular groups of users. A review
of electoral registration services alone—and a subsequent
inspection—is almost certainly too narrowly focused to result
in benefits to the public that will outweigh the costs of the
exercise.
14. Once the scale of these review programmes
became clear, demands for the Commission to inspect all best value
reviews were impractical. The Commission therefore carried out
a major review of its approach to audit and inspection, which
was published in 2001 as Changing Gear: best value annual statement
2001. The principles of that review have since been developed
further, and have been extended to all of our work through our
commitment to Strategic Regulation and to Comprehensive Performance
Assessment.
STRATEGIC REGULATION
15. Strategic Regulation aims to maximise
our impact on improving public services both through constructive
challenge and by spreading excellent practice. On the other hand
it seeks to minimise the burden of regulation by being proportionate
to risk and need.
16. Strategic Regulation is based on four
key principles. Firstly, it goes beyond merely providing assurance
that taxpayers' money is not being misused and looks for ways
of actually driving up standards in public sector organisations.
17. Secondly, it focuses on the needs of
all those who use public services. The real success test for any
public body is whether people have been well served and preferably,
over the course of time, better served.
18. Thirdly, it concentrates scarce regulatory
resources where they are most needed. We want to leave the excellent
performers relatively alone so that we can focus our attention
on those with a greater need to raise their game.
19. Finally, Strategic Regulation ensures
that regulators themselves work much more closely together to
avoid any unnecessary duplication of effort and that those being
regulated see a significant part of regulation as being a productive
tool for improvement.
20. Strategic Regulation, therefore, challenges
the Commission to do more by scrutinising our own activities and
costs, and reducing the burden of regulation on audited and inspected
bodies by stopping or reshaping activities where costs outweigh
benefits.
21. These principles are embodied in our
Comprehensive Performance Assessment of local authorities.
Comprehensive Performance Assessment
22. Following the publication of Changing
Gear, the Audit Commission developed a new performance management
framework for local government in England, Comprehensive Performance
Assessment (CPA). The first CPAs were carried out in single tier
and county councils in 2002, and were repeated in 2003 and 2004.
All 238 district councils have also been assessed, concluding
in December 2004. The Commission is currently consulting on proposals
for a new approach to CPA from 2005.
23. CPA pulled together for the first time
in a single framework the existing information on council performance
that was held by councils, government departments, auditors and
inspectors. It also built in a "corporate assessment"
of councils' ability to improve. CPA identifies the strengths
and capabilities of the council, as well as where more support
is needed.
24. The CPA framework measures the effectiveness
of the whole council in terms of the way that it provides services
and works in partnership. Its focus is on the leadership, systems
and culture that lead to improved services, as well as on the
current performance of those services.
THE ELEMENTS
OF CPA
25. CPA draws on a wide range of evidence
to produce assessments of "current performance" on key
services (education, social care, housing, libraries and leisure,
environmental services and benefits). Much of this evidence is
already in the public domain, but it was brought together in one
place for the first time in CPA. This evidence includes inspection
judgements from the Commission and other inspectorates, auditor
judgements, performance indicators and Government assessments
of councils' plans. These service assessments are combined to
provide an overall assessment of the council's current performance
on services.
26. CPA also includes a judgement about
the council's ability to improve services for local people and
deliver positive change for their communities. This judgement
was based partly on a "self-assessment", which required
councils to answer four simple but challenging questions about
their own performance:
— what is the council trying to achieve?
— how has the council set about delivering
its priorities?
— what has the council achieved to
date?
— in the light of what the council
has learnt, what does it plan to do next?
27. The self-assessment was followed up
by an external "corporate assessment", carried out by
a small team, which included an auditor and inspector as well
as officers and councillors from "peer" councils. The
outcome of the corporate assessment was a high-level report on
the council's strengths and weaknesses, and a judgement about
its ability to improve.
28. The judgements about current performance
and about the council's ability to improve are combined to form
an overall assessment of each council, placing them in one of
five categories: excellent, good, fair, weak or poor. These categories
and the underlying scores were publicly reported by the Audit
Commission, and have been used the basis for improvement planning
and for targeting audit and inspection resources where they can
make most impact.
HOW THE
AUDIT COMMISSION
CURRENTLY TAKES
ACCOUNT OF
COUNCILS' DUTIES
RELATING TO
ELECTORAL REGISTRATION
29. CPA has seen a significant shift away
from the inspection of individual services—such as electoral
registration—and towards a more strategic approach. In 2002-03
the Commission carried out more than 400 inspections in single
tier and county councils for CPA. We anticipate that our activity
will reduce further. For example, by 2006-07, the volume of inspections
needed for CPA, including the corporate assessments planned for
that year, should fall by 68% from the 2002-03 level.
30. Electoral registration is not a specific
area of focus within CPA, either in the service assessments or
in the corporate assessment. However, for every council, the Commission
carries out a locally-based assessment of key risks, and develops
a combined audit and inspection plan which focuses on those risks.
If significant issues relating to electoral registration were
to be identified at the local level, these would be picked up
and addressed within the audit and inspection plan. The Commission
is not aware of any authority where this is currently the case.
31. Finally, the Commission's auditors are
responsible for certifying money claimed by local authorities
for the costs of electoral registration and elections. Grant claim
certification focuses on identifying whether the money is being
correctly claimed to cover costs incurred.
1 Reports summarising these inspections are available
on the Audit Commission's website at www.audit-commission.gov.uk Back
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