Concern over monitoring of public services partnerships
A ``significant issue'' with the way bodies designed to make public services more sustainable are being monitored and held to account has been identified by a watchdog.
A significant issue'' with the way bodies designed to make public services more sustainable are being monitored and held to account has been identified by a watchdog.
Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) were tasked with reforming public services after the Christie Commission warned in 2011 that reducing finances and increasing demand will make public services unsustainable if no action is taken.
However, the Accounts Commission warned CPPs have yet to fulfil the major change required five years on from Christie.
The failure of the Scottish Government and councils to clarify performance expectations for CPPs is a significant issue'', it said.
Progress is also being hampered by short-term national performance targets'' and the lack of formal accountability within CPPs, it added.
The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 sets out new statutory duties for CPPs, and reforms such as health and social care integration aim to promote prevention and outcomes.
But stronger national leadership and support from the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) is needed for community planning to meet its full potential, the Commission said.
The report states: The failure of the Scottish Government and Cosla to clarify performance expectations of CPPs, in line with the National Community Planning Group's refocused approach to community planning, is a significant issue.
The Scottish Government is strengthening its focus on outcomes in some policy areas. But the way in which public bodies report performance, and are held to account, does not always reflect the Scottish Government's policy of promoting outcomes, prevention and reducing inequalities.
It is difficult to see how CPPs can meet the expectations of the statement of ambition without changes being made to how public sector partners and CPPs are held to account for their performance.
This is not helped by the expectation in the statement of ambition that CPPs should be genuine boards, with all the authority, behaviours and roles that implies for them, when partners' formal accountabilities lie elsewhere.''
Caroline Gardner, Auditor General for Scotland, said: The progress we've seen from individual CPPs shows there is enthusiasm for pushing forward with this ambitious reform.
But without a stronger focus on prevention, long-term outcomes, and how partnerships perform, it's difficult to see how community planning can make the impact that's needed.''
Douglas Sinclair, chair of the Accounts Commission, added: This report makes clear that a gap still exists between national expectations of CPPs, and how partnerships plan and deliver services.
Bridging that gap requires firm leadership from the Scottish Government, Cosla, and CPPs, strengthened by empowered communities and a commitment from all partners to share and deliver resources towards joint priorities.''
Cosla president David O'Neill said: We believe that only local partnerships using their combined resources to act on locally agreed priorities will result in a reduction in inequalities and improved outcomes.
The concern we have is that for this to be successful all local agencies must play their full part in Community Planning and must be released by Cabinet secretaries and ministers to take action and commit resources on local priorities agreed in partnerships.
There is obviously a role for national government in this and rightly so, however the balance is not quite right at the moment and is perhaps too skewed in their favour.
The constraints of nationally directed priorities, resources and targets are getting in the way of local action.''
It urged the Scottish Government to free up agencies they control to more fully engage in community planning at local level''.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: Our Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act... gives community planning a clear statutory purpose and places specific duties on Scottish Government bodies such as NHS boards and Scottish Enterprise and other community planning partners to support locally-led community planning, which we expect will drive improvement further.
We will respond to the findings, and will be keen to work with Cosla on this.''