Best Value inspections to take more `risky` approach

Best Value will take a more risk-based approach to inspection,
junior local government minister Alan Whitehead said in response to
criticism that the various inspectorates have taken a `one size
fits all` approach during the first year of the regime,
writes Jonathan Pearce.

“It is a criticism that has some salience in some areas,”
Whitehead admitted at a Local Government Association
conference.

But he said he hoped work by the Best Value Inspectorate Forum
for England would help target inspection on services where the
risks involved were the greatest, as well as develop common
inspection methodologies for the different inspectorates.

He added the government was “looking to reduce” the number of
reviews and plans councils had to undergo, he added, and the
department of health was working on “rationalising” the social care
inspection programme.

Meanwhile, the LGA and the BVI Forum launched a joint statement
on better inspection at the conference, with the aim of setting out
a “shared view … on the principles that should guide the
future development of best value inspection” in England.

Whitehead told Community Care there needed to be a
reduction in the number of inspections and performance indicators,
but warned against any “regressive” Best Value analysis of the
regime itself.

“The next step is to ensure that the process of self-review
within the inspectorates is properly structured, so that it is
enhancing the Best Value regime … and at the same time
working within the theme,” said Whitehead. “It is about making sure
service delivery is a creative process, rather than bashing people
on the head so they do it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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