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Is the Audit Commission on the right track? For all councils, including districts, CPA has been a hugely beneficial exercise. New Labour pumped in billions of additional monies into the public sector and quite rightly wanted to see bang for the buck. Councils of all political persuasions have overseen service improvements, the like of which have never been seen previously. I would argue that CPA has been a vital tool in focusing the attention of members and managers alike to the need to improve in a step change way our service quality. We, at West Lancashire, know this is true and have seen our PI's be transformed and we sit at the pinnacle of any league table with an ‘excellent' tag. It might seem perverse, therefore, for me of all people to argue that maybe CPA/CAA has had its day. I say this as I believe we have already moved in to a new paradigm, although this is the ‘elephant in the room' that no-one seems to mention. I argued in this column recently that the days of step change improvement are finished, finito, gone for the foreseeable future – the notion that across the piece we can get substantially more for less is plainly ‘tosh'; (obviously we will continue to seek to make efficiency gains when we can but these are not going to bridge the massive financial gaps in councils budgets). We are, therefore, in a period of retrenchment where services will have to be reduced particularly in non-priority/statutory areas. Maybe it's just me but I am scratching my head thinking what's the point of CAA or for that matter the Government's efficiency agenda? My role as Chief Executive is a very straightforward one in terms of priorities – reduce costs by 10% plus, seek to ensure we can continue to deliver high quality services in priority areas and ‘work like stink' to avoid compulsory redundancies. To be honest I will need some convincing regarding what value top down driven efficiency reviews or Audit Commission inspections have to offer in these current circumstances. I'm not for a minute saying that my council, will refuse to work with the Audit Commission, (indeed we have a terrific relationship with our DA) but maybe in the light of the current circumstances the Government/Commission has to rethink this approach. Our priority in West Lancashire is working with neighbouring councils and private sector partners to get our house in order, reducing costs and protecting priority services. The old paradigm of ‘harder test', ‘stretch targets' and ‘step change improvement' are, for the moment at least, consigned to the dustbin of history. Finally, by focusing not on inspections but on ‘bread and butter' issues, we might go some way to repairing the damage to the reputation of the local government family by the (sometimes unfair) press reporting on issues such as ‘Baby P', Shannon Matthews and the Icelandic Bank debacle. Bill Taylor is chief executive of West Lancashire District Council

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WHITEHALL

District View: Has CPA had its day?

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