LGA updates Corporate Peer Challenge strengthening focus on governance, performance and cultural issues
The Local Government Association has updated its Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) to include a greater focus on performance, governance and culture and has said councils are expected to undertake a CPC every five years.
The LGA said the updated approach comes in response to the current challenges to the sector and the current draft statutory guidance on best value authorities.
Councils that take part in the Corporate Peer Challenge programme will be visited by a team who, over the course of three or four days, analyse the local authorities' processes. The team then produces a report which includes recommendations for the council.
A progress review is undertaken around 10 months after the CPC, which is designed to assess the council's progress and early impact in the implementation of the peer challenge recommendations.
The new CPC will continue to focus on five core areas: local priorities and outcomes; organisational and place leadership; governance and culture; financial planning and management; and capacity for improvement.
But it will "be accompanied by a stronger focus on performance, governance and culture, to reflect the current challenges to the sector and the current draft statutory guidance on best value authorities," according to the LGA.
In addition, all councils will now be expected to have a CPC every five years as part of the refreshed government grant-funded offer to the sector. The LGA said it will work closely with councils to introduce a detailed timetable and window to help plan for a CPC.
A new report structure, style and format will also be introduced, including reports which will be "more authoritative and direct in content, as a result of the stronger focus on performance and finance".
Changes to CPC progress reviews have also been made, which include a more defined structure, with a full review of a council's action plan and updates against each action or recommendation to date. All evidence, knowledge and good practice will also be shared with the wider sector.
The LGA said it is also working to build a small team of officer and member peers and peer challenge partners to deliver urgent CPC at very short notice for councils deemed at 'high risk' by the LGA.
Cllr Abi Brown OBE, Chair of the LGA's Improvement and Innovation Board, said: "Our Corporate Peer Challenge is one of the most valued improvement and assurance tools we offer, which we continue to review to ensure it offers the assurance and reflection we know the sector values. Strengthening CPC further, to make it more robust and consistent to meet the needs of the sector, ensures that we continue to be best placed to provide a universal offer to all councils once every five years."
Cllr Brown added: "We have already made changes over the past year, including stronger requirements around publication of reports, action plans and progress reviews after 12 months, and this new, improved CPC will build on the overwhelmingly positive impact that peer challenge has already had on so many councils and strengthen our sector, so we are fit and ready for the future."
Adam Carey
