Best Value in Public Services The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is pleased to respond to the Scottish Executive Public

Service Reform Group consultation on best value in public services. This response has been compiled by the General Secretary, Professor Gavin McCrone and the Policy Officer, Dr Marc Rands, with the assistance of a number of Fellows with considerable experience in this area. The different areas for consideration are now addressed below: Does the 2003 draft guidance help to clarify for Accountable Officers what is required of them under the duty of Best Value? The document acknowledges that the principles behind its advice to Accountable Officers are those applicable across the public sector, including local government, where the implementation of Best Value, and its audit by the Accounts Commission for Scotland, are now well-advanced. It would be helpful, therefore, if the advice referred directly to that developing practice and to the lessons to be learned from it, especially from the series of Best Value Audit Reports now being issued by the Controller of Audit and the findings on them being made by the Accounts Commission itself. Because the principles are now well-known and have been much discussed over the past eight years, there would be merit in issuing advice to Accountable Officers that is rather less prescriptive and detailed than the present document. There is a danger with advice which contains the degree of detailed exemplification in the draft guidance that it will be regarded by those to whom it is directed as a bureaucratic checklist and so have the perverse effect of stifling rather than encouraging the innovative approaches that are demanded by Best Value principles. It would be better, therefore, to offer the kind of high-level advice that is implied by the headings to each chapter and the boxes that follow and to limit the This means sections to a small number of key examples of the kind of things that will characterise management in an organisation committed to Best Value. The This means.. section of Chapter One on Commitment and Leadership, for example, runs to fourteen points, some of them at a level of detail that seems both exaggerated and so obvious as not to require inclusion (see, for instance, point 11, on fraud). A further example is Chapter Five on the Use of Review and Options Appraisal, where there are sixteen specific points, some of which are repetitive and few of which add much to statement of general principle and advice in the box at the head of the chapter. This criticism would also apply to Chapter Four. It would be also consistent with Best Value principles, which emphasise the need for organisations to make their own decisions about how Best Value is to be achieved and demonstrated, for the guidance to be reconsidered before it is finalised to ensure that the balance is right between general principle and detailed exemplification, and with due regard being paid to the equitable treatment of all clients and customers. In this context, there is a possible incompatibility between the apparent prescriptiveness of this approach and the general statement, which is welcome, that there is no intention to impose on organisations large additional administrative burdens. The chapter on Sound Management of Resources (Chapter Four) would be improved if there were some reference to the desirability of moving the public sector to longer planning cycles and to indicate clearly that performance will be judged by output and audit (including the specific audit of Best Value: cf. local government) rather than by the detailed control of inputs that is suggested by current practice and which could be argued to be implied by the detailed prescriptiveness of the draft guidance. It is clear, and welcome, that Best Value principles demand that Accountable Officers ensure that their organisations make available to their stakeholders information that will allow them to make judgments on performance. It is surprising, therefore, that there is no reference to the importance for accountability of ensuring that, in the context of sound financial stewardship, accounts and annual reports are published as soon as possible after the end of the financial year. Such a statement could be included in the guidance in Chapter Four. What types of ongoing support to allow exchange of learning, good practice and networking would be helpful? 1 The Royal Society of Edinburgh

In terms of the exchange of learning and good practice, it is important to allow time for Accountable Officers to meet other executives with similar responsibilities for free discussion of management problems. Additional Information Copies of this response are available from the Policy Officer, Dr Marc Rands (email: mrands@royalsoced.org.uk) or from the RSE web site: www.royalsoced.org.uk. December 2005

2 The Royal Society of Edinburgh