Project summaries

For the Office Of The Deputy Prime Minister: Recommendations for local government plans rationalisation

This report sets out the conclusions of a study to support the commitment made in the Local Government White Paper of December 2001, “Strong Local Leadership – Quality Public Services” to reduce and rationalise planning requirements by at least 50%.

The study involved an assessment of the 66 plans identified in recent government research into the planning burden. This assessment has been undertaken through discussions with all plan commissioners and the Local Government Association together with an assessment of each plan against the government’s agreed planning principles.

The report outlines the current situation and issues, discusses options for change and makes overall proposals. Recommendations are then made for individual plans and groups of plans within this context.

The project has been undertaken jointly by Portico Consulting and the New Policy Institute.

Our overall recommendation is that, over time, the government should replace all centrally-mandated plans - except for the Best Value Performance Plans and Community Strategies - by using the development of performance assessment or management systems, notably Comprehensive Performance Assessment, to assess the effectiveness of authorities’ planning (as opposed to plans), together with clear communication of national priorities. In this option:

Local authorities and their partner organisations would still be encouraged, and indeed required, to plan their services and initiatives but the planning process would become a locally managed activity.
The processes for delivering national policy objectives would become centred on a coherent national process for communicating these objectives and targets and for assessing progress in achieving improved outcomes, rather than on the mandating of plans. The Comprehensive Performance Assessment process would clearly be central to this.
Central government would still require local authorities to include specific subjects in their local plans, and to respond to specific national policies, objectives and targets. However, local authorities would have control over when and how they planned for these.
The Community Strategy and Best Value Performance Plan would both remain, as the key corporate planning documents.
Central government could still produce advice for local authorities on the planning process, but such ‘guidance’ would be clearly identified as voluntary ‘good practice’.
Departments could still be reassured, through the Comprehensive Performance Assessment process, that local planning arrangements are in place, by holding inspections and also through less formal relationships).

The removal of planning requirements would, in some departments, need to be paralleled with the development of more robust mechanisms for communicating required outcomes and for monitoring progress in achieving them. There would also be a need to develop local planning processes to replace the current centrally mandated ones in some Councils.

Our proposal fully responds to local authority ‘complaints’ about the current ‘burden’ and provides them with a coherent national framework within which to plan. We suggest that it would also result in a more effective process for ensuring local delivery of national priorities and thus represent a gain for central government as well. It also fits with the two recent major initiatives for central/local government relationships, namely the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (which, in part, monitors progress and outcomes ) and Shared Priorities (which communicate national priorities).

If our recommended option is adopted, then it is clearly vital that it does not become ‘corrupted’ by individual plan owners finding ways of arguing that their subject is an exception for which a specific plan requirement is needed. Nevertheless, there are a limited number of specific circumstances where there is potential merit for a specific plan requirement and these are discussed in the main text.

The major alternative to our proposed way forward would be for plan requirements to continue as present, with some rationalisation based on selected removals and mergers. Whilst this would represent a lessening of the ‘burden’ on local authorities, the essential elements of the ‘burden’ would still remain. Decisions on which requirements disappeared and which remained would also be a matter of ‘shades of grey’ rather than ‘black and white’. And such decisions would be subject to in-depth negotiations with those departments which may feel that their subjects were being ‘down-graded.’

25 of the 66 current plan requirements could be removed or merged more or less immediately, as decisions on their future have effectively already been made. A further 14 are not local authority service plans. The Community Strategy and Best Value Performance Plan, would remain. There would then be choices about the phasing for removing the other 27 requirements. For example, implementation could start with the ‘higher performing’ authorities, only proceeding for the others once plan owners had gained assurance about the effectiveness of the alternative mechanisms for communication, monitoring and assessment.

top

New Policy Institute, 003 Coppergate House, 16 Brune Street, London E1 7NJ

Tel: 020 7721 8421 | Fax: 020 7721 8422 | info@npi.org.uk | www.npi.org.uk