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Friday the 13th certainly lived up to the worst-possible expectations this month for staff at the Audit Commission, when Eric Pickles announced he would abolish the entire body. The communities secretary might have been open all along about plans to scrap the commission's flagship Comprehensive Area Assessments, but the demise of the whole watchdog has been a slower process. Anyone who claims to have been surprised by the move has obviously not been listening to the local government gossip mill. Rumours surrounding the future of the commission have been rife for months. But the manner in which the commission came crashing down was short and sharp – an inglorious end to almost 30 years of auditing, with an announcement rushed out on a Friday afternoon while many staff were on holiday. Whether the move was ‘vindictive' or ‘political' on the part of Mr Pickles, as critics claim, is neither here nor there. He has wielded the axe, as he is entitled to. The commission itself has, it seems, played the wrong hand on a number of occasions. One of the first decisions to land on Mr Pickles' desk in his new job as secretary of state was to approve the appointment of a new chief executive – with the commission asking for a salary so obviously unpalatable to the new government. At a time when the Government was keen to cull quangos, the watchdog scored a number of subsequent own-goals, which sealed its fate. Few in local government will be shedding tears over the demise of the commission – too many have been on the receiving end of poor reports for that. But perhaps its greatest achievement of recent years has been the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). The CPA regime and the performance league table pushed councils to improve. It also provided evidence to ministers of good performance, and gave local government more confidence in its own capacity. CAA was a far more clumsy system – and we will never know if it could have been fixed. It will now be up to the sector to improve and police itself – let's hope it is up to the job. Heather Jameson, Deputy Editor, The MJ

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WHITEHALL

Few tears shed over axed body

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