The Local Government Association (LGA) is set to design a sector support and assurance framework to help improve “checks and balances” in the system that currently are not working effectively, such as external audit.
As part of the LGA’s corporate peer challenge report published on 8 March, a series of recommendations has been suggested to the LGA, one of which is to “lead the design of a reshaped sector support and assurance framework for local government”.
At a press briefing prior to the launch of the report, Abi Brown, the LGA’s improvement and innovation board chair, detailed that the framework will be sector-led. She highlighted that it would map out the current checks and balances within local government and make improvements on issues, like external audit, that aren’t “working effectively”.
“It’s clear that some of the checks and balances maybe aren’t working as effectively as they should. So, for example, external audit, where we have a situation that most councils haven’t had their accounts signed off for at least two years, due to the problems with the external audit market,” she said.
One would hope that by [the framework] being able to demonstrate the financial position of councils, we are able to demonstrate the need for more financing.
Finance and governance focus
Dennis Skinner, the LGA’s head of improvement, told Room151 that finance and governance should also be a key element of the framework. He detailed that the role of statutory section 151 officers and the inspection of services are other checks and balances in the system that will be assessed under the framework.
He said: “There are lots of things that are currently in place and we’re keen to look at them as a whole to see whether they need simplifying or strengthening, whether the system is working as well as it can, and what support can be put in place to make some bits that perhaps aren’t working effectively to work better.”
Skinner’s sentiment was echoed by James Jamieson, the LGA’s chairman, who said that financial resilience should be a key element of the framework.
“Part of assuring councils is the need to be financially resilient and part of that is being properly funded. So, one would hope that by it being able to demonstrate the financial position of councils, we are able to demonstrate the need for more financing,” he told Room151.
There are lots of things that are currently in place and we’re keen to look at them as a whole to see whether they need simplifying or strengthening and whether the system is working as well as it can.
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Work with Oflog
Another recommendation in the report was that the LGA should “tighten the networks around sector support and assurance” as well as work with the “emerging Office for Local Government (Oflog) in a way which leads to earlier support”.
Jamieson highlighted that Oflog is separate from the new support and assurance framework as it will compile data that is not within the LGA’s remit, such as health, education and skills information.
He added: “That’s why we’re very keen to work with government to enable us to access that sort of data on a council basis and not on a health geography basis.”
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