§ Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domerasked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to ensure that sustainable development is assessed within local authorities' comprehensive performance assessment; and [HL1341]
Whether any of the environmental services performance indicators in the comprehensive performance assessment are designed to encourage the protection and enhancement of the natural environment; and, if so, which ones; and [HL1342]
Whether the comprehensive performance assessment gives sufficient weight to councils with excellent sustainable development practice; and [HL1343]
48WAWhether a local authority is appraised on its delivery of quality of life (as defined by the Audit Commission) in the comprehensive performance assessment; and, if not, why not. [HL1344]
§ Lord Evans of Temple GuitingThe Audit Commission is responsible for developing the CPA framework and applying it to local government. In doing so, it is concerned to ensure that the principles of sustainable development and the factors that contribute to a good local quality of life are built into both the way in which individual services are assessed and the way in which authorities' corporate performance is rated.
With county and unitary authorities. some service assessments, for example waste services, based on specific performance indicators and inspection results, appear to have reflected these principles reasonably well. Further work is needed in other areas ahead of the next round of CPAs for these authorities. For all of them, the corporate assessment included judgments about the way in which sustainable development principles underpinned council activity, although specific scores were not given for this.
In the case of CPA for district councils, it is also proposed to include a specific assessment of performance in securing a high quality local environment: trials are currently continuing among West Sussex district councils to test the approach.
The Audit Commission is also currently piloting a set of quality of life performance indicators with volunteer local authorities. If these measures prove reliable and useful to local authorities, they may be considered for inclusion in both the best value performance indicator set and in inspection standards, in future years.