The government has unveiled its white paper on local government, which will introduce a ‘scorecard’ for local authorities and give greater freedom on fund-raising to top performing councils.
Announcing the white paper in the Commons this afternoon, DTLR secretary Stephen Byers said: “For the first time we will produce a clear performance profile for each council. The Audit Commission will compile a scorecard and will identify each council as either high performing; striving, coasting or poor performing.”
He added: “Further freedoms over and above those for all councils will be applied to high performing authorities. We will also intervene decisively where councils are failing their local people. Where councils are not collecting their council tax or providing high quality services, for example, this will not be acceptable, and we will take action.”
Byers also said that financial restraints on local authorities would be lifted, allowing them to raise capital, provided they were able to service the debt.
EGi News 11/12/01
