A new improvement and assurance framework – designed to help councils check that they have the right controls in place and identify where they need to become more effective – has been published by the LGA.
Developed following extensive engagement with local authorities, professional bodies and other stakeholders, the framework will help councils understand how all the different elements used to provide assurance and accountability fit together, and signpost to related support and guidance.
Ultimately, the framework will support authorities to develop the effectiveness of their own assurance and to reduce the risk of failure.
It highlights factors that make a difference to councils, including being transparent and open to external challenge – such as through an LGA corporate peer challenge – and having political and managerial leadership that visibly prioritises ‘doing the right thing’.
Cllr Abi Brown OBE, Chairman of the LGA’s Improvement and Innovation Board, said: “Councils do many and varied things to keep themselves ‘safe’ and check that what they are doing is lawful, in line with professional standards and appropriate performance targets.
“This process of checking – or ‘assurance’ – should be evidence-based and accurate, and enable others, such as the public, to hold the council to account for the services that they deliver.
“This framework has been designed to support this.
“It’s more important than ever that councils, in the current financial context, are using all of the elements of this framework effectively, to identify and manage risks to performance and corporate governance.”