First nationally agreed performance management framework launched for local authority regulatory services
A first nationally agreed excellence framework for the performance of key local authority regulatory services such as environmental health and trading standards was launched this week.
The product of work by the Local Better Regulation Office, the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (Lacors) and local authorities, the framework is expected to be the cornerstone for performance management of local regulatory services at a time of increased pressure to deliver value for money.
The framework is intended to be principles-based, rather than prescriptive, and to empower local authorities to take responsibility for their performance. The focus will be on outcomes, rather than compliance.
There are four themes to the framework:
- Leadership and strategy
- Customer focus
- Resource management, and
- Achievement of sustainable outcomes.
Publication of the framework comes shortly before completion of the Regulatory Services Peer Challenge project, which involved 50 local authority regulatory services in England and Wales.
Writing in the foreword to the framework, LBRO chair Clive Grace said: “The real value of this framework is that it is the product of a joint local and national agreement of what high quality services look like. This is hugely important given the array of different performance schemes currently in place for local authority regulatory services and the need to effect a change in regulatory culture, across the system, to deliver outcomes rather than simply outputs.
“As such the framework should immediately provide a focus for improvement activities, in particular the development of tools to drive sustainable change, as well as the individual performance management systems of national bodies.”
Cllr Paul Bettison, chairman of Lacors, insisted that council regulatory services should be allowed to focus on what is important locally.
He said: “It is essential that these services are not burdened by unnecessary controls and centrally driven performance frameworks which deflect councils from developing and delivering effective frontline services and responses to the key challenges that they and their communities face.
“As more councils embrace and use the framework, we look forward to the freeing up of those councils from many of the centrally imposed burdens, allowing them to use this precious resource to deliver real positive outcomes for local people and their communities.”
