Bridging the accountability gap - Audit Commission

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Governing partnerships | Governing partnerships for better accountability
‘The whole culture of fining another organisation when you are also saying to them
“work together in a partnership way” is two completely different messages . . . We’re
so integrated that the Director of Service Development is a joint appointment across
the local authority and the PCT. He manages the budget, so in fact he would be
fining himself. So we’ve sort of leapfrogged over this.’
99 In less well-integrated partnerships, various national targets can have a different effect.
Inevitably, chief executives of public bodies will pay greatest attention to the problems for
which government will hold them to account. The chief executive officer of a one-star PCT
faced the prospect of the trust being downgraded to zero stars because it was unlikely to
meet its waiting list targets. The local LSP manager appreciated that, despite the chief
executive’s personal commitment to partnership working, he needed to direct most of his
efforts towards achieving the targets for which he was to be held personally accountable.
100 It is easier to achieve trust and goodwill when little is at stake. When partners must hold
each other to account for mutually agreed standards, targets or outcomes, then it is easy
to strain goodwill and lose trust.
Financial management
101 Effective stewardship of public resources is as important in partnerships as in corporate
bodies, where numerous controls and constraints promote accountability and prevent
fraud and mismanagement. Auditors have found financial problems in some partnerships
where such controls and constraints are lacking.
102 Partnerships that place responsibility for allocating central government funding streams
(such as NRF, Sure Start, Connexions) with an accountable body appear to have better
financial systems and controls. This is because the accountable body must ensure
compliance with the requirements of the grant-paying government departments.
103 The principal governance issues in financial management are:
●
Establishing adequate systems for financial control and monitoring within and
between partnerships. Different accountability mechanisms often present challenges:
‘There is a whole range of funding streams for each of our thematic partnerships
and it just does not make administrative sense. It’s cumbersome, it’s inefficient and
it misses the huge opportunities there are for applying resources flexibly and