strategy
Promoting best value in local authorities
Description:
Best value is aimed at ensuring local authorities deliver quality services at a price that people are willing to pay. Best value initiatives address achieving economy, efficiency, effectiveness and quality in local services, and provide a demanding challenge to local authorities, seeking continuous improvements in service costs and delivery. Context:
The best performing councils are in touch with local people, have strong and effective links with business, have modern management structures and deliver best value.A key part of the best value process is to identify the organizational competencies an authority would require to take forward best value successfully. Authorities should be able to compare themselves against these competencies and highlight the skills they needed to develop in order to improve.
Implementation:
The UK government has made the following commitments to best value practice: (1) To apply the principles of best value to all public services, while recognising the different stakeholders and the different lines of accountability that may be involved in the provision of services by other public bodies; (2) To encourage greater joint working and partnerships between the public sector, business and voluntary bodies, including partnership networks; (3) To establish a framework of fair employment practices and proper protection of the rights of employees; (4) To put in place a scheme to identify and select the very best performing councils as beacon councils, where they will be rewarded with new freedoms and powers; (5) To establish a new Best Value Inspectorate within the Audit Commission (incorporating a Housing Inspectorate), which will oversee an objective and independent process of regular inspection; (6) To work with the Local Government Association, the Audit Commission and the Local Government Management Board on the Local Government Improvement Project, in which selected councils will test their readiness for best value; (7) To develop a robust framework of performance indicators for efficiency, cost and quality which will allow for a mix of nationally prescribed indicators and locally determined ones and provide a basis for assessing the performance of an authority; and, (8) To set clear targets for improvement in areas of key national importance. Constrained by:
Abstaining from local authority planning Facilitates:
Strengthening local governmentsStrengthening local authority capabilities on water protectionIncluding resource recovery in local authority waste management plansStrengthening role of local authorities in sustainable development Problems:
Inadequate local government financingInappropriate local administrative organization
Unstructured local government in small communities
Subjects:
Communication → PromotionGovernment → Municipalities
Value Redistribution → Value redistribution
Type Classification:
F: Exceptional strategies Related UN Sustainable Development Goals:
