Corporate peer challenges (CPC) should ‘stretch' councils so they get the most out of them, the chairman of the Local Government Association's (LGA) improvement and innovation board has said.
Cllr Paul Bettison's comments come after an independent evaluation of CPCs by Cardiff University last year found some councils would have welcomed the reports they received to have been ‘more critical and incisive'.
One chief executive told researchers that their written report had been ‘sanitised' and ‘trivialised some of the issues,' adding: ‘It was about not wishing to apportion blame, not wishing to embarrass or reflect badly upon anybody.'
Cllr Bettison admitted that some peer teams stretched councils more than others but he also stressed the reviews were not inspections, adding: ‘It would be helpful for the sector if more people understood it's not stormtroopers coming in.'
The Cardiff review urged the sector to be ‘more honest about the issues being faced and resist attempting to alter the content or messages in the report'.
It read: ‘Some of the examples we read seemed to be designed to show the councils in the best light rather than pointing to what it wanted to achieve from the CPC.
'Without an honest self-assessment, time can be wasted by the CPC team trying to second guess exactly what the council wants from the process.
‘There is also a responsibility on councils to get out of the inspection mind set where achievements were sold to inspectors and clearly explain where they need support to help make improvements.'
One peer suggested some her colleagues might be too sympathetic and moderate their judgements or ‘give councils more credit if they are nice people and clearly trying'.
They told The MJ: ‘Peer challenges sometimes hold back from delivering hard-to-hear messages. I've witnessed it.
‘In my experience, peer challenge teams where the dominant team member has been a chief executive have been more challenging and specific in their feedback than when the leader member has been the dominant one.'
