New proposals announced by the Audit Commission will strengthen the position of the culture block, including sport, if they are included in the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA), the government's performance measurement tool for local government.
The culture block's inclusion is documented in The Harder Test, published by the Audit Commission, that gives details of the revised framework for CPA in single tier and county councils and which will make it a tougher test for councils with less emphasis on inspection and a growing emphasis on performance indicators. The Audit Commission will publish proposals for second tier authorities (district councils) in due course.
Alongside this new framework there is a seven week consultation process on their proposals for five second tier service blocks. These are
- Housing
- Benefits
- Fire
- Culture
Children and young people and adult services are the two first level services.
The proposed scoring system means a low rating for any second tier service would reduce the overall assessment by one level. In other words an authority that does not achieve at least level 2 in culture cannot be rated overall as Excellent.
Within the culture service block the Audit Commission is proposing a transition year in 2005 with inspection reports and historical measures that are largely based upon libraries, where the data is already available, and customer satisfaction which is an existing best value performance indicator.
In 2006 a series of additional indicators are proposed.
Almost all the new indicators will be measured through a new national participation survey and an expanded national benchmarking service. The new indicators include: ·
- A percentage of 5-16 year olds engaged in 2 hours a week minimum on high quality PE and school sport with and beyond the curriculum
- A percentage of adults participating in at least 30 minutes moderate intensity sport and active recreation on 3 or more days a week
- Participation in local authority sport recreation provision
- Awhole series of indicators around participation in recreation/leisure provision by different social groups
- A percentage of population volunteering in sport and active recreation for at least an hour a week
- A percentage of population that are within 20 minutes travel time of a range of different sport facilities which have achieved a quality assured standard
- Commentaries by Sport England, Museums and Libraries Association and Arts Council on service quality and delivery
- An assessment of LPSA2, LAA, LPIs
For most of the indicators a threshold level is suggested and a method of measurement identified.
Regarding the Audit Commission's proposals Roger Draper Chief Executive Sport England said: "These proposals represent a huge challenge for culture professionals." says Sport England chief executive Roger Draper. "A massive co-ordinated effort has convinced the commission the culture sector is serious about improvement, and that it will be able to generate meaningful performance indicators that can provide a robust and reliable measure of local authorities' performance.
"I hope the sector will rise to this challenge and support these proposals. This is a unique opportunity to drive an agenda of change, improvement and growth. Sport England will be playing its full part, investing significant resources into collecting the baseline data for Local Authorities."
Further information
Audit Commission website CPA
The Harder Test (PDF)
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