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It would be a mistake for local authorities to cheer the demise of the Audit Commission says Sir Jeremy Beecham The Audit Commission, now unceremoniously laid to rest by Eric Pickles, was conceived by the Thatcher Government as a watchdog for potentially errant local councils, bred purposely to snap at their heels. Few in local government will mourn its passing, but that would be a mistake. Of course we had our problems with the commission, its cost, its tendency to grandstand and court publicity, to adopt an adversarial rather than a co-operative approach, to indulge in simplistic league tables or numerical or coloured coded assessments of performance. And even those of us who saw it, particularly in recent years, as an ally rather than a critic, could not forbear to chuckle at its embarrassment over its own investment in Icelandic banks. But part of the hostility the commission aroused arose at least as much from the burden of inspection and the expensive superstructure of regulation imposed by government and individual government departments and agencies, like Ofsted, as from its own role. To the last ministers and civil servants fought to maintain their own role, pressing for performance indicators and statistical returns. At one memorable meeting the LGA literally plastered (or at least blue-tacked) the walls of Local Government House with over 200 PI's, each of which had to be published in a paid-for newspaper advert very year, with no discernible effect on readership. Oddly enough in a rare example of influencing Labour Party policy I once persuaded Neil Kinnock to include in an election manifesto the replacement of the Audit Commission with a ‘quality commission', with a positive role of promoting service improvement, rather than the negative one of looking over every treasurer or chief officer's shoulder. Though CAAs may have failed to live up to the commission's expectations, they foreshadowed the kind of approach implicit in Total Place, to which the Government and the opposition both subscribe. What we will lose with the demise of the commission is a single source of independent assessment and advice not just about local government services but all local public services, and the ability to compare and contrast experience across the whole country. The commission which had oversight in the last few years of health as well as local government, was uniquely well-placed to perform this role. It might be argued that the Local Government Group in its various manifestations could undertake the task. For all the sterling work undertaken by the LGA, the IDeA and RIEPS, however, there must be serious questions about how this could be managed, especially if top-sliced grant is reduced. In any event a membership organisation is not likely to be regarded as sufficiently independent for its reports and recommendations to carry as much as weight as an independent body, which after all, has long included leading local government figures in its governing body (though not me – I declined an invitation from Michael Heseltine to join it in 1991!). What we are likely end up with is a fragmented system, essentially confined to traditional audit, incapable of properly informing and enhancing local accountability, while no doubt enhancing the profits of major accountancy and consulting firms. No added value there then. Sir Jeremy Beecham is former leader of the LGA Labour Group and former chair of the LGA

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WHITEHALL

We still need an independent assessment body

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