New performance standard for councils needed

Glyn Gaskarth says the demise of the Audit Commission should make way for a more relevant measure of council performance

The Audit Commission was politically compromised and overly bureaucratic.  There is, however, value in allowing councillors and ordinary citizens to compare their council with relevant peers. We should create and administer an independent standard of council’s performance.  This has real value. To do this we need to get the assessment criteria right, so what should they be?

The American Legislative Exchange Council provides a useful example of how a privately operated standard currently operates in the United States. They publish Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer state economic competitiveness index. Our councils have considerably less powers than an American state. Some of the ALEC criteria contained below are not appropriate for a UK standard. Their criteria include:

• the top marginal personal income tax and corporate income tax rate personal income tax progressivity (the change in tax liability per $1,000 of income)
• property tax burden, sales tax burden, estate/inheritance tax levy, remaining tax burden, recently legislated tax changes, number of tax or expenditure limits imposed (0=least/worst, 3=most/best)
• debt service as a share of tax revenue, public employees per 10,000 of population, state liability system survey (tort litigation treatment)
• state minimum wage level, average workers compensation costs (per $100 of pay roll), right to work state (option to join or support a union)?
• Other featured indicators include the level of domestic migration into the state, employment growth and personal income per capita.

Exposed: Spending watchdog hired vanity photographer to snap boozy parties

The Audit Commission – the spending watchdog supposedly in charge of overseeing value for money in town halls – has been exposed hiring a vanity photographer to snap drink-fuelled parties at taxpayers’ expense, and spending public money on a lavish series of events for friends of the quango.

New answers to Parliamentary Question have revealed that the spending watchdog blew £12,000 on ‘alumni’ events for its former staff, holding drinks receptions at posh London hotels, such as the five-star Royal Horseguards (itself costing over £130 a head). At the same time, they spent £7,000 on ‘vanity photography’ to illustrate in their corporate brochures how they were saving money, including snapping their lavish alumni events and parties.

Photographer Frank Noon - who provides a premium corporate photography service - was paid to snap the pictures of the quango’s staff and former staff at a variety of opulent and exclusive venues, including up the BT Tower, Savoy Place, Lancaster House and the Reform Club. The events for alumni even included ‘branded’ Audit Commission fish and chips as part of the bespoke hospitality. 

This follows a series of shocking spending revelations by the quango under the last Labour administration. The Audit Commission is being abolished by the Coalition Government.

Backing for Audit Commission's demise

An interesting report on Public Finance about representatives from the Local Government Association, Chief Fire Officers Association and District and County Councils Networks giving evidence to the Commons’ Communities and Local Government Select Committee welcoming the abolition of th Audit Commission.

Robert Light, deputy chairman of the Local Government Association’s leadership board, felt the Audit Commission had "had its day" while free market environment for appointing auditors "could provide a better, more cost-effective option" for councils. Jill Shortland, also from the LGA said the Audit Commission had been "over burdensome for local authorities" adding: "The work local authorities had to put in for every piece of work and inspection was horrendous.... it was government reaching down and interfering with local government rather than supporting us."

Peter Holland, of the Chief Fire Officers Association, lamented "we were feeding the beast of the Audit Commission rather than getting on and delivering the service." While Cllr Peter Fleming, from Sevenoaks District Council, called for the commission’s in-house audit practice to be allowed to "float off and mutualise as soon as possible" to open up the market.

Audit Commission spent over £53,000 on 224 chairs

By Jonathan Isaby

The abolition of the Audit Commission was one of Eric Pickles' earlier announcements as Local Government Secretary.

Yet today its disregard for taxpayer value for money is still coming to the fore.

Before its abolition was announced, reveals tonight's Evening Standard, the Audit Commission splashed out on a couple of hundred luxury office chairs:

Britain's spending watchdog lavished £53,000 of taxpayers' money on office chairs including designer models costing nearly £900 each, the Evening Standard reveals today... In the last year it bought:

• Four "modern and elegant, eye-catching" Kinnarps Omni Swivel chairs at £854 each.
• Two Naughtone Hush chairs at £840 each which offer "sanctuary from the everyday hubbub".
• Eleven Kinnarps Bone chairs at £562 each.
  

In total, the commission bought 224 office chairs in total in the last 12 months, including 125 Godfrey Syrett "ergo plus high back asynchro" models at just over £200 each. The cheapest chair was £99.

DCLG minister Grant Shapps has been quick to condemn the spending

"It seems that whilst the country was in recession the Audit Commission went on a massive shopping spree buying designer chairs. This kind of casual attitude to spending taxpayers' cash undermines faith in the public sector and is yet more evidence of how under Labour the Audit Commission forgot that its job was to protect the public purse."

Abolition of Audit Commission alone will save over £300 million

The Public Administration Select Committee report on Quangos makes tiresome reading. Sometimes reading the report it seems to be saying the Government has abolished too many Quangos, sometimes it seems to be saying they haven't gone far enough. I suppose this is a feature of trying to accommodate Labour and Conservative MPs as joint authors on reports on big contentious subject.

The stuff about saying there should have been delay for more consultation before any Quangos were abolished was especially wet. The whining about process was included to accommodate Quangocrats who had gave evidence to the committee and had developed an appalling sense of entitlement. We have had 13 years in opposition to think about what to do. There is also a financial urgency to get on with it. There is no money, Bernard.

Saying that the functions carried out by the Quangos need to be abolished to get big savings rather than just transfer them  to Government Departments was a fair point. But often their functions are being scrapped. the report suggests  that the modest target of £1 billion a year savings will not be achieved - on the grounds that the Government has yet to calculate  what the total savings will  be. The report says:

Councils stop work on CAAs

The Government has announced that the Comprehensive Area Assessment, that hugely onerous array of regulation imposed on Town Halls, is to be abolished. Legally they will continue to exist until until legislation is passed. But according to the Municipal Journal the Audit Commission is "poised to announce all work surrounding the CAAs will stop immediately." In Hammersmith and Fulham we reckon it used to cost £200,000 a year in officer time dealing with the CAAs. Then on top of all that the Audit Commission would charge each council a £100,000 fee for "audit costs."  Flaming cheek. 

Forall councils in Britain the bill for supplying all the pointless CAA data was probably getting on for £100 million. Actually, it was probably worse than pointless. It encouraged a culture of sameness. Officers would resist any innovation that would clash with ticking the CAA boxes.

Audit Commission spend £60,000 "to combat the activities of Eric Pickles"

Extraordinary story in the Sunday Times about the Audit Commission, the taxpayer funded local government regulator, spending £60,000 to lobby against the Conservatives. This is because of proposals from the Party to scale back the Commission's budget and endless regulations - which at present represent a heavy financial burden for town halls to comply with. In particular the Conservatives are pledged to scrap the Comprehensive Area Assessments (CAA.)

The Commission hasn't even been subtle. They chose Connect Public Affairs, a lobbyists founded by Labour MP Rosie Winterton. The firm advised the best strategy would be to try and generate Tory splits on the issue with “strong local lobbying response in order to mitigate and combat the activities of Eric Pickles." I can't imagine they will have much luck finding Tory councillors  declaring how tremendously worthwhile the CAA is - the process is the most time consuming, scandalous, bureaucratic waste of money. But even more outrageous is the idea of taxpayers money being used to campaign against a political party and it evidently not occurring to the Audit Commission that this is not considered an appropriate way to behave in this country.