Bridging the accountability gap - Audit Commission

More documents

Recommendations

Info

2 Partnerships and value for money – the costs and benefits 52 Value for money should be a key governance issue for partnerships. Increasingly, public bodies and regulators are focusing on value for money because of the Gershon Efficiency Review (Ref. 13). 53 The established definition of value for money is the relationship between economy, efficiency and effectiveness (Figure 6). Figure 6 The value for money relationships Value for money should be a key governance issue for partnerships. Value for money Economy Efficiency Effectiveness Qualitative Costs Inputs Outputs Outcomes Quantitative Mapping and evaluating partnerships 54 Many organisations do not know the extent of their involvement in partnerships. Some organisations maintain a database of partnership activity or carry out a partnership audit 24 Governing partnerships | Partnerships and value for money – the costs and benefits
Governing partnerships | Partnerships and value for money – the costs and benefits 25 periodically. However, there is seldom an established means of identifying what resources they are committing to partnership working, or of evaluating the costs and benefits from working in a partnership. Few organisations we spoke to could tell us how many partnerships they were engaged in. ‘We stopped counting when we got to 150…’ LSP manager 55 In some areas, there has been a growth in partnerships, sub-groups and meetings, often with similar terms of reference and overlapping (but not identical) membership. This has become a drain on resources and has resulted in duplication and inconsistencies. Public bodies need to improve the coordination within and between different partnerships, in order to ensure that they understand which of the mainstream services provided by their partners already help to deliver their own objectives. This should allow them to see whether proposed new initiatives will add value or simply overlap. 56 Assessing value for money involves taking account of all available evidence in order to reach a judgement. Some partnerships may involve additional costs, because the processes of negotiation and discussion are time-consuming. Others may manage to eliminate duplication of effort and expenditure. Partnerships will achieve value for money if they can achieve equal or better outcomes for less expenditure. To comprehend this requires an understanding of costs and benefits. What do partnerships cost 57 Partnership working incurs costs. If partnerships spend too much time in meetings discussing process issues instead of focusing on achieving their objectives, the costs can outweigh the benefits. Partners should regularly review how they work to determine whether the outputs and outcomes merit continued involvement. 58 Almost none of the public bodies we talked to in the course of our research had tried to calculate the total cost incurred in working in partnership. Some find the prospect daunting: ‘We’ve never looked in detail at inputs, outputs and outcomes, and would find this damn scary, since it would clock up big numbers.’ Director of health, PCT
Page 1 and 2: Public sector National report Octob
Page 3 and 4: Governing partnerships | Contents 1
Page 5 and 6: Governing partnerships | Summary 3
Page 7 and 8: Governing partnerships | Recommenda
Page 9 and 10: Governing partnerships | Introducti
Page 15 and 16: 1 The partnership landscape Why do
Page 17 and 18: Governing partnerships | The partne
Page 25: Governing partnerships | The partne
Page 29 and 30: Governing partnerships | Partnershi
Page 35 and 36: Governing partnerships | Governing
Page 55 and 56: 4 Public accountability in partners
Page 57 and 58: Governing partnerships | Public acc
Page 63 and 64: Governing partnerships | Improving
Page 73 and 74: Governing partnerships | Appendix 1
Page 75 and 76: Governing partnerships | Appendix 2
Page 77 and 78:
Appendix 3: References 1 Sullivan a
Page 80:
To order further copies of this rep
show all

Bridging the accountability gap - Audit Commission

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?