Audit Commission in the dark over CAAs - and its structure

The watchdog's controversial Comprehensive Area Assessments have ended in confusion, and with a chief executive still to be appointed its structure and remit are also under review

Billed as a one-stop shop where the people could compare the quality of local services in their area with the rest of the country, Comprehensive Area Assessments (CAAs) have been wound up just six months after the launch of the One Place website.

But as time ticks away the relevance of the data collected, and with six inspectorates immediately halting the gathering of information, agencies remain in the dark about the government's next steps in relation to the wealth of data already collected.

"We haven't had any more detail about what will happen next," says a spokesman for the Audit Commission.

"The data still has some utility but that utility does diminish over time. There will be no new data now CAAs are no longer but no final decision has yet been made."

Although the Department of Communities and Local Government has yet to formally wind up CAAs, the Audit Commission said it had immediately ceased working on joint assessments after the government's announcement in May "to avoid confusion on when they should end".

The commission says grants it received for developing the data have now also ceased.

Although the data promised to give the public more choice and access to information than ever before on local government performance, including local hospital cleanliness, infant mortality rates, how efficient the council's recycling or area policing, the framework had been criticised by some.

The work carried out by the six inspectorates responsible for amassing the data from 152 English areas - the Audit Commission, Care Quality Commission, Ofsted, and Her Majesty's Inspectorates of Constabulary, Prisons and Probation – has been accused of creating more bureaucracy for local authorities and an unfair system of comparison between authorities.

Last year Caroline Spelman, the then shadow communities secretary, denounced them as "an army of clipboard inspectors."

Two London councils also threatened to withdraw, owing to high costs involved and two others, Warrington – the only council given three red flags for failing to tackle issues such as unemployment - and Doncaster - rated the lowest town hall score - said the site was "woolly" and didn't convey an "accurate picture."

Ian Marks, Warrington council's leader, said the red flags didn't match up to feedback from residents.

Despite the criticism, the data collected by CAA's is broad and significant. The Audit Commission said that although they had wound up CAAs, the One Place website would remain available to the public, at least for the moment.

And after the scrapping of Comprehensive Performance Assessments and now CAAs, the future of inspection regimes appears to be at a loose end.

"An inspection regime has a cost and takes time and resources for councils," says the LGA, which advocates a council peer system. "We think there's more value in councils sharing with each other what they are doing well. It's about finding a system that's not too resource intensive and does a better job of intervening before there's a problem. We saw [CAAs] as a step towards councils doing more for themselves, not as an answer."

The LGA, which commissioned a study into the impact of CAAs in 2009, found that 70% of 175 local authorities agreed there needed to be more commitment "to a systematic approach to self-evaluation and critical self-challenge" to scale back inspection levels.

A further 90% wanted to further reduce the burden of data returns to central government. Decentralising inspections would better serve the public by freeing up councils to focus more on frontline services, the LGA says.

While a replacement framework for CAAs remains under wraps, so to are plans for management at the Audit Commission. The role of chief executive has also been put on hold after Eric Pickles, communities and local government secretary, vetoed a £240,000 salary package for the post "to send a signal" over high sums paid to chief executives.

Michael O'Higgins, the commission's chair, said no chief executive would be found "until decisions can be made on the commission's structure and remit".

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