Councils will no longer be assessed annually on their adult social care performance by the Care Quality Commission from next year.
Care services minister Paul Burstow made the announcement today at the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Manchester.
The final assessment of councils’ performance in commissioning care will come out on 25 November.
The reform will take immediate effect so councils will no longer have to collate or submit data against the CQC’s outcomes framework for 2010-11.
The annual assessment will be replaced by a more localised assessment system, which will be defined over the coming months.
Burstow told council leaders he wanted to strip out “unnecessary bureaucracy” and rein back “regulatory pressures that are needlessly burdensome on your day-to-day work”.
He added: “You’ve already told us that the CQC’s annual performance assessment of commissioning isn’t the best way to tackle under performance. We’ve listened, we’ve understood and we’ve acted. We will not be taking forward the assessments next year.
“In their place, real time, ongoing…not the artificial snapshots that are currently taken within the system. It’s a more proportionate and constructive system built around local accountability, driven by sector-led, mutual support, not the unhelpful stigma of priority for improvement status.”
Cynthia Bower, CQC’s chief executive, said: “The annual performance assessment played an important role in driving improvements in council commissioning of care. However, we recognise the need for change.
“We welcome this move to further devolve responsibility for the monitoring and improvement of council performance, bringing it closer to local people. This supports the drive to have more local accountability of public services.”
Full coverage of the National Children and Adult Services Conference 2010
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