Watchdog calls on Welsh authorities to put service user perspectives at centre of performance reporting

Few of Wales’s 22 councils put service user perspective information at the core of their reporting and tend to focus on outputs rather than outcomes, the Auditor General for Wales has said.

Adrian Crompton said it was consequently hard to see whether councils knew if they used public money well, and said he expected to see improvements.

In a report Use of performance information: service user perspective and outcomes, the Auditor General said: “It is vital councils understand the impact of their activities and policies to know if they are using public money wisely and achieving what they set out to achieve.”

He recommended councils should strengthen both the performance information on the perspective of service users and outcomes, and their data quality arrangements. 

The report said: “Our findings raise fundamental questions about the effectiveness of those arrangements.

“It is difficult to see how some councils are managing performance effectively if they do not report information on outcomes and the perspective of service users.

Crompton said: “I hoped to find a more positive picture than we did as the importance of understanding outcomes and the perspective of service users has been emphasised for years.

“These are arguably the most important aspects of a council’s performance management arrangements. This review casts doubt on whether councils have proper arrangements to secure economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the use of their resources. I expect to find an improved position when we follow up on our recommendations.”

The report said, with a few exceptions, councils had limited performance information available to enable senior leaders to understand progress towards desired outcomes, which “hinders councils’ ability to know if they are meeting the needs of local communities and providing value for money”.

Senior leaders were given lots of performance information, but “the extent to which this reflected the perspective of service users and outcomes was very limited and undermined the value of the councils’ performance reports.

“As a result, it is difficult to see how councils know how well they are spending public money.”

Crompton said his findings were “deliberately quite stark given that the importance of understanding outcomes and the perspective of service users have been emphasised for years so we expected to find a more positive picture than we did”.

Few councils tried to put the service user perspective information at the forefront of their performance reporting and where this was provided it was largely confined to social services.

Mark Smulian