This report looks at how councils use information to make decisions. It encourages chief executives, senior officers and lead members to be more demanding about the information they seek and use when making decisions. The report also suggests ways to improve in both these areas.
With tough financial times ahead, councils say they know they need to act now to improve the quality of their data. Nine out of ten councils say they think good quality information is a top priority. However, Less than 5 per cent of councils have excellent quality data and 65 per cent face problems sharing data externally.
Steve Bundred, Chief Executive of the Audit Commission, said:
'Giving decision makers the information they need will help councils make savings while improving services. This is all the more critical in recessionary times and some solutions have little or no extra cost.'
'It's important that councils have the right information now because many of the decisions that they are going to make in the years ahead will be harder than usual. Information may not sound like an exciting topic, but right now too many councils risk making poor decisions because their information is inaccurate, irrelevant or incomplete.'
The report also finds that almost 80 per cent of councils say that a lack of in-depth analysis is a major problem. But their analysts spend around twice as much time on producing routine reports as on value-added analysis.
The report is supported by a number of practical tools including: