Local government
The Audit Commission's work in local government
The Audit Commission works with local authorities and their partners to improve services for local people.
We appoint auditors who carry out audits of local authorities and report annually on their findings. Information about our approach to audit and annual audit letters can be found in our audit regime pages.
In 2000 we started carrying out inspections of local government services, under the Local Government Act 1999. We carried out and published 2,014 inspections of local government services between 2000 and 2011. It is widely accepted that local government services improved significantly during this period.
We also carried out assessments of councils under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) from 2002 to 2009. In April 2009 we replaced CPA with the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA). CAA ended in May 2010.
We also carried out benefit services inspections and Use of Resources (UoR) assessments for local government.
The Audit Commission worked closely with Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission, HMI Probation and other inspectorates for many years to help councils and schools improve services and outcomes for children and young people.
We provide analysis and improvement tools to help local public services measure, compare and improve their performance and costs. These include:
Our Performance information web pages bring the knowledge and learning from our work in performance information together in one place. The material includes detailed information on performance indicator collections up to and including the National Indicator Set (NIS) and a wide range of publications and other resources to support and encourage better use of information.
In the past we published major national reports on a wide range of local government issues. These reports were based on independent, authoritative analysis of national evidence and local practice and helped to improve the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of local public services.
We have now produced a series of local government briefings on different themes to summarise our work in areas we are no longer researching, such as sustainable development, and benefits services. These briefings capture key messages from the Commission's research in these areas, and provide links to relevant national publications, case studies and tools.