News

Strong local political leadership is crucial to improving councils' comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) ratings, James Strachan, Audit Commission chairperson, has said.

Strachan told a Local Government Association conference on using the CPA to improve public services that there was a close link between strong political leadership and councils that were rated "good" or "excellent".

"It is a crucial obstacle to achieving improvements if political leadership is not working," Strachan said. "Getting politician leadership right is possibly the single most important thing."


Steve Bundred, the executive director of the Improvement and Development Agency who will take up the post of chief executive of the Audit Commission in September, told delegates there were not enough good examples of local leadership.

"There are still too many inward-looking councils and dysfunctional politicians and leaders who are lacking in ambition, both political and managerial," Bundred said.