Bridging the accountability gap - Audit Commission

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3 Governing partnerships for better accountability 72 Chief executives and non-executives often complain of multiple accountabilities in their corporate roles. Partnerships may compound their difficulties further, because creating internal and external accountability mechanisms is more complicated. 73 Before partnerships can provide effective external accountability to the public, they face the challenge of ensuring that effective accountability exists within the partnership. The principles of good corporate governance apply with equal force in partnerships, but there are particular governance challenges in achieving effective internal and external accountability. Mechanisms for accountability 74 If we examine the four components of accountability identified in recent research for the ODPM (Table 1) (Ref. 15), we see that corporate bodies have many more established procedures and mechanisms for accountability than do partnerships. This is why partnership working can often expose organisations to greater risks. ‘…The same principles of governance apply in partnerships as in large institutions, but it is more onerous to implement them and the difference must be recognised. Not all elements of the way that the individual institutions work can be made to operate in an identical fashion in partnerships. If you were to get that, then almost certainly there would be a good reason for not having a partnership, but having an integrated institution.’ Local authority chief executive 32 Governing partnerships | Governing partnerships for better accountability
Governing partnerships | Governing partnerships for better accountability 33 Table 1 Four components of accountability Corporate bodies have many more mechanisms for internal and external accountability than partnerships. Giving an account Being held to account Taking account Redress Corporate Annual reports Reports to cabinet/board Reports to audit committee (Reports to LSP) Public events, eg, roadshows Communications strategy Open decisionmaking meetings Scrutiny Research and Performance consultation, eg, appraisal citizens’ panels Internal audit Neighbourhood Public meetings forums Annual audit letter Inspection reports Complaints procedures Local Government and Health Ombudsmen Partnership (Annual reports) (Public events, eg, roadshows) Communications strategy Patchy scrutiny Partnership business reports (Annual audit letter) (Inspection reports) Research and consultation (Neighbourhood forums) (Complaints procedures) Ombudsmen NB: Brackets indicate mechanisms at an embryonic stage only
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 27 and 28: Governing partnerships | Partnershi
Page 33: Governing partnerships | Partnershi
Page 37 and 38: 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

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