This is an important document. The first utterance of the fledgling Best Value Inspectorate team is intended to indicate how they expect to undertake their new role. Best Value ‘is about democratic accountability and ownership of service improvement, to ensure delivery of excellent services to citizens who pay for them and who need them’ Unfortunately the document is not for consultation which does not bode well for future relationships between the Inspectorate and local authorities.
The objective of the publication is to set out, by way of a warning, how best value inspection will be undertaken. It draws on the experience of case studies and interprets the eight ‘Inspection Principles’, which are:
inform the public about the performance of local services now and their likely performance in the future, and so enhance accountability
focus on public services as users experience them
take into account the use of money, people and assets and provide economy, efficiency and effectiveness
act as a catalyst to help public bodies to improve
identify what works, to inform policy nationally and practice locally
the scale of inspection should be proportional to risk
the methodology and criteria on which judgements are based should be explicit and based on evidence of what works in improving services
inspection should be carried out without fear or favour.
These principles are surely acceptable to all in public service. Inspection should ‘highlight deficiencies in areas that need improvement as well as applaud good performance’.
‘Exhibit 4’ seeks to explain the questions that underpin the Inspectors' judgement whether the service is ‘good’ or ‘going to improve’. However, both this and the subsequent case studies create an appearance of complexity to the inspection process. Rather than giving extra clarity to the principles, the fine details offered in the document serve to obscure and skew the purpose of inspection. Indeed the impression given is that the Inspectorate has modified the principles and may well apply them arbitrarily.
Whilst the document tries to persuade the reader that inspection will be more than a tedious exercise in ticking boxes and awarding stars, novel and constructive thinking is somewhat absent. There is a real danger that both the Inspectorate and the inspected will simply undertake a bureaucratic process, which will miss the whole point of best value—continuous improvement.
Of greater concern is the apparent blurring of the roles between inspection and consultancy advice. The suggestion that inspectors may even instruct local authorities how best value should be implemented is further evidence of, at best, muddled thinking by the Inspectorate. Inspectors (or auditors) should never stray outside their defined roles. As soon as advice is given on how to manage services, the inspection role is compromised and the giver of the advice becomes liable for the outcome. Private sector audit firms have rightly expressed their concern. Inspectors should not interfere with the management of democratically determined services. Unless total failure is proven, those services remain the responsibility of the people that manage them.
The underpinning legislation is deliberately non-prescriptive. Local authorities have the right to specify their services differently from all others, providing that difference is grounded on evidence that local people want it that way. This flexibility clearly gives the Inspectorate a dilemma. The document indicates a preference for compliance with performance of the ‘upper quartile’ rather than simply seeking evidence of response to market research and evidence of continuous improvement. Local services must be allowed to reflect local preferences, not some national standard.
The Inspectorate intends to ‘engage skilled and credible inspectors’. Has this country gone mad? Yet again we seek to promote the very best people in to positions where they do nothing except check what others are doing. Surely if we want the best possible services, then the best possible people should be managing them.
This is a disappointing first offering from the new Inspectorate. They will have to think more clearly and do better, if best value is to survive and prosper.
