Comment – A case of mistaken identity? By David Pia and Nikki Bridle (PF 17/11/06)

Audit Scotland respond to criticism. Principles of performance audit:

- Corporate focus

- Self-assessment

- Local context

- No league tables or simple scores – focus on improvement

- Proportionate approach – collecting evidence from inside and outside councils and minimising burden

- Rigorous moderation

Four key areas:

- Strategic direction

- Organisation and resource management, openness, equal opportunities, sustainability

- Council services

- Areas for improvement

The blame game, by Arthur Midwinter (PF 27/10/06)

Criticism of Audit Scotland’s approach to performance reporting. Difficulty in defining outcome indicators and linking to budgets – too many outside influences. Hard to link budgets to plans, as in practice budgets are incremental. Too much emphasis on systems and processes. Method of calculation excludes many measures and causes underestimation of the scale of improvement in Scottish LAs.

Water merger wins MSPs’ backing (BBC News 6/12/01)

“Scotland requires a single, efficient, publicly accountable and locally responsible water authority to keep down charges and manage the investment that will assure us of first class drinking water and cleaner beaches.”

Fears that it opens the door to the privatisation (rather perverse) and that it may become a hidebound bureaucracy.