Bridging the accountability gap - Audit Commission

Governing partnerships | Improving the governance of partnerships 67
Strengthening inspection
151 Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) 2005, and the Joint Area Reviews of
children’s services, are examples of how the Commission and its co-inspectorates intend
to work together to assess integrated multi-agency delivery in local areas. The Local
Services Inspection Forum is the mechanism through which inspectorates can continue
to ensure that they coordinate their activities, develop common methodologies and
schedule joint work. Even where the Commission is not directly involved in inspecting
services, it will share its learning with co-inspectorates in order to minimise the burden of
regulation and support the development of a consistent methodological approach.
152 One example of this commitment is the methodological and directional support that we
provided to the steering group for the criminal justice system’s joint inspections of youth
offending teams. A further example is our joint work with the National Audit Office and the
Healthcare Commission. All three organisations are signatories to the Concordat
between bodies inspecting, regulating and auditing healthcare (June 2004). This trend will
continue and the new initiatives outlined in Chapter 1 will require further collaboration.
153 The revised CPA 2005 framework recognises that effective partnerships are the key to
successful service outcomes. CPA 2005 will look at the strategic and operational impact
of partnership working. Partners’ views on how well councils undertake their community
leadership and partnership roles will be important in determining the overall assessment
score. We expect that this emphasis in CPA will be an important contributing factor in
fostering change in service delivery.
Strengthening investigation
154 The Local Government Ombudsman and the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman are
working with the Cabinet Office and the ODPM to improve arrangements for joint
working. They seek to improve the exchange of information on complaints that affect
more than one jurisdiction. The Audit Commission welcomes this initiative, which should
permit a single point of reference for the complainant where the issue affects more than
one Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.