Comprehensive performance assessment for councils will be of limited use unless the Audit Commission puts greater emphasis on value for money, the Housing Quality Network has warned.
The best practice group was responding to the Audit Commission's consultation paper on the future of CPA, which closed last Friday.

The paper followed the initial round of CPA results for counties, metropolitan councils and London boroughs last November. It makes long-term proposals for the CPA beyond 2006 and suggests ways of monitoring councils' progress ahead of the next formal assessment.

The network also urged the Audit Commission to take greater account of the specific difficulties councils face in meeting performance indicators laid down by central government.

Alistair McIntosh, chief executive of the Housing Quality Network, said: "Councils could be allowed to assess themselves and then present the case for their spending. The Audit Commission needs to stand up for the taxpayer and local people, but it could do so by judging the robustness of councils' explanations."

McIntosh also said housing associations should prepare themselves to be assessed in the same way as councils. The Audit Commission took over as single inspectorate for all social housing in April, and it is understood that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister wants to make it easier to make comparisons between councils and associations.

Next month the Housing Corporation will start to roll out its "traffic light" assessment system for housing associations, which many within the sector see as the equivalent to the CPA.

Abdool Kara, housing inspectorate operations manager at the commission, said: "Audit Commission inspections will feed into the Housing Corporation assessments, and it's foreseeable that they could be used in the same way as CPA scores." The move raises the prospect of housing associations' funding being linked to their performance.

Source

Housing Today