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July 7, 2006
Audit Commission and CPA
In a conversation the other evening I was asked what does the Audit Commission need to do to improve the "Comprehensive Performance Assessment" of local councils with respect to public libraries.
I said : It is crucial that this method of appraisal works properly and at the moment it is true that in some respects a council which conforms to what the CPA demands might have a better service than one which doesn't, however, on the whole the arrangement is not good because:
a. The current measures reflect the library professionals' and DCMS' view of what the public want, but not the public's view of what they want the service to deliver. They are not based on sound and continuing market research, nor on the simplest common sense- and if they were they would be different
b. The measures are too complicated. They are difficult to understand even if you spend a lot of time with councils as I do- they should be simple enough for the public to recognise and in language they understand.
c. In the past two years the councils that scored well have not been the best and vice versa- the scoring doesn't work
d.The measures should be library by library- and aggregated to council level, so a local community can see how its own library performs.
e. The library service is in exceptionally poor condition (as the Select Committee correctly said last year) and the Commission should insist that the DCMS address these problems with urgency in its role as guardian of value for public money. I believe there is need for a very senior working group at the insistence of the Audit Commission on behalf of Parliament and the Department of Local Government. A recommendation for a similar working group at ministerial level was also supported by the Select Committee, but as with most of their recommendations it has been ignored or sidelined.
In 2002 the Commission itself described the almost terminal state of the public library service in an excellent report called "Building Better Libraries". Sadly most of the recommendations of that report also still remain un-addressed. Performance of councils against them should be part of the work.
I also believe that publication of regimes like the CPA or (God forbid) another version of the Public Library Service Standards should be accompanied by a thorough round of seminars and training so that councils understand what was intended and how to achieve the objects. That obligation would also help those framing the measures to make them understandable and sensible.
I hear and fear that DCMS and MLA are reviewing their own measures yet again and that work is being carried out by a collection of librarians. There can be no point in such a group producing yet another revision to the Public Library Standards; the work needs to be done by an independent body who understand how to assess the needs of the public.
The conversation took place in 11 Downing Street.
Posted by Perkins at July 7, 2006 7:43 AM
Comments
Hi Tim,
It's good to see you with a blog and good to see you still remember that report!
Posted by: Ingrid Koehler at July 10, 2006 11:40 AM