How councils can improve services

The government should scrap the approximately 1,000 targets facing local authoritiesand replace them with 30 for the entire public sector, as part of a drastic devolution of power from Whitehall, the Local Government Association said today.

A new report claims decentralisation is the route to improved service quality and efficiency and enhanced trust in politics.

Closer to people and places makes no specific recommendations for social care, but its implication is the end of star ratings and the performance assessment framework facing councils.

It also calls for local area agreements, which currently only affect non-mainstream funding, to be broadened to cover all public sector resources, with councils and other partners having a new duty to co-operate to deliver them.

The report recommends better engagement by councils with the third sector, through full cost recovery and three-year contracts for services.