3.21 While the Government has encouraged greater transparency in local government, it has discontinued many of the existing arrangements for performance reporting. For example, the Government has stopped the National Indicator Set, along with some of its component data collections such as the Place Survey. Existing repositories of comparative data, such as the Audit Commission's OnePlace website, are no longer supported or updated.
3.22 The Department for Communities and Local Government (the Department) has published a Single Data List cataloguing all of the data that councils must provide to central government. However, the Department considers that the publication of this information is not currently done in a way that allows for easy comparison between councils across a range of service areas, making it hard for residents to assess relative performance and value for money.
3.23 The Department's preferred approach is for the local government sector to address this gap. The Local Government Association (LGA) in conjunction with local authorities is developing an online tool, LG Inform, which draws together comparative data to enable performance benchmarking and other analysis. The LGA expects to make the service available to the public in September 2012. The tool currently includes approximately 750 metrics in total, covering a range of services.
3.24 In the future, LG Inform will allow local authorities to add voluntary additional data to the system. This is consistent with the principles of localism and reducing centrally prescribed performance data. However, voluntary data will need to be managed carefully if it is to provide meaningful information for performance measurement and accountability. For example, there is a tension between local bodies developing their own measures of performance and user satisfaction, and the demands of the public and local performance managers for comparable, benchmarked information. Such information requires uniform standards and definitions.
3.25 Implementing greater transparency in local government provides new items of financial and operational information for the public. However, although the Code of Recommended Practice provides direction, there are still significant variations in how councils report this information. The Government has discontinued established performance frameworks. It considers that it is primarily for councils themselves to respond to citizens' requirements, and for the sector as a whole to develop an appropriate system to allow for performance benchmarking. Through the LGA, the local government sector is leading on a tool, LG Inform, to address this issue, but this will not be available to the public until September 2012. It is too early to determine whether this will meet the performance information needs of residents.