Public Services Inspection in the UK, edited by Howard Davis and Steve Martin. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, £18.99
Inspection of government bodies by other government bodies is now big business, even if inspection itself dates back to the Victorian era. Its cost doubled to £550m in the five years from 1998. (It would have been useful to have an up-to-date estimate from the editors; a list of inspectorates would have helped, too.) This is "transactional" spending - the bit in between what policymakers will and what gets delivered to the public - and the big question is whether it's necessary
That's to say whether auditors, inspectors, assessors and regulators make a difference and improve what schools, primary care trusts, local authorities and police forces do. The Audit Commission is credited with helping improve the capability of English councils, but studies have perversely linked school inspections with poorer exam results.
We don't know, at least in cold, quantitative terms, and while the academics who contribute most of the essays bemoan the absence of evaluation of inspectors by Whitehall, they too might be considered remiss in not themselves inspecting the inspectors more closely.
The recent abolition of the fire service inspectorate opened up a natural experiment. Research might have examined the before and after; but even researchers as doggedly applied as Davis (from Warwick University) and Martin (from Cardiff University) find it hard to move swiftly.
Into their conclusions they throw a wild card. Even if we had harder evidence that inspection works, they say, it might not matter if it did not mesh with what the public thinks about a public service. In their contribution, Clive Grace, the chair of the Local Better Regulation Office, and Steve Bundred, the chief executive of the Audit Commission, ask if this points the way forward for inspection: towards better alignment with citizen expectations and, perhaps, some closer form of popular involvement in service assessment. As usual in such collections, the chapters vary in style and quality.
Some (the essay from Professor John Clarke of the Open University) are apparently critical of the whole enterprise of inspection; others are concerned to polish the watchdogs' teeth. But mixed bag or not, the book is valuable. Inspection and assessment have grown apace in recent years yet the public conversation around their rationale and effects (in what ways, for example, do they differ?) has been limited. These essays push the discussion on.
by David Walker, managing director of communications and public reporting at the Audit Commission
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
