Local authorities are crucial partners for the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), spending almost £3.2 billion a year on culture and leisure.
In its report Public sports and recreation services the government has concluded that “inconsistencies in options appraisal and weaknesses in market testing mean that many councils are missing both significant cost savings and efficiency opportunities. As a result they are failing to reconfigure current provision to be able to meet future participation targets and community needs, and are unable to demonstrate value for money for the community assets for which they are responsible”.
HM treasury has published a guide to performance management – Performance management, measurement and information which contains the following illustration;
The Department of Culture Media and Sport have their own performance targets to meet in relation to the national picture and improving take up in the community. The DCMS performance targets are not very up to date.
The Department of Communities and Local Government publish information around performance management – under the following headings
- Best Value
- This section contains information on the Best Value framework, identified good practice and policy developments.
- Local government inspection
- In this section you will find Local Service Inspectorate Forum (LSIF) guidance for lead officials, agreed protocols, principles and memoranda of understanding for inspection and engagement with local authorities.
The main thrust of performance management today is the Comprehensive Performance assessment. This is made up of a snapshot of performance through CPA inspection.
Corporate CPA inspections have three elements;
- Use of resources
- Value for money
- Direction of travel
Council have to undertake a self assessment against Audit Commission guidelines in each of these three areas.
The assessment is scored for each of these from 1-4 against current performance, and against capacity to improve.
For each of these elements there are eight “tests”, one of which is called “performance management”, but they all add up to managing performance from different dimensions.
DCLG publishes an overview of CPA.
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