Bridging the accountability gap - Audit Commission

Governing partnerships | Partnerships and value for money – the costs and benefits 29
69 The next generation of local public service agreement (LPSA) targets will show whether
some partnerships are making significant progress, but the evidence is not yet
conclusive. Partnerships are critical to local authorities’ ability to make a success of LPSA
Round 2. The ODPM evaluation of LPSAs focused initially on processes. Validated data
on outcomes will be available from December 2005. In the meantime, case studies 4 and
7 show that the basis can be put in place to show how longer-term outcomes can be
monitored.
70 However, greater collaboration at local level would permit service providers to see
evidence of improvements:
‘…The station commander became involved with a whole range of partners,
including the District Council, to tackle the secondary fires problem. It culminated in
clearing out rubbish from a whole range of streets. So stuff that would normally be
set fire to at particular times of the day was cleared out. The general public could
see all these people working together, and what they have ended up with is much
cleaner streets, and a better place to live. For us, the benefit has been immediate in
terms of the vast reduction in the number of calls we’ve had in that area.’
Chief fire officer
71 Here we see that it is possible to begin to quantify benefits that would not otherwise
accrue from independent working: the service can monitor the reduction in calls; quantify
the associated savings and the public satisfaction with improvements. Although such
calculations are not yet widespread, it is possible to prove the contention about
partnerships that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Asking the right sort of
questions about partnerships will reveal whether or not they do add value (Case study 2).