Best Value in a Local Authority

Abstract

In the last two decades, public sector services have come under mounting pressure to improve performance and reduce costs in service delivery. Successive Conservative governments exposed many local public services to compulsory competitive tendering (CCT). The number of services provided by local authorities was reduced by transferring them to the private sector mainly to cut the cost of delivery. Concomitant with this change was a shift towards greater accountability to service-users together with the introduction of performance targets; factors that radically altered the framework in which public sector industrial relations operated. Following the election of New Labour in 1997, CCT was abolished. Its replacement, Best Value, far from reversing Conservative local government reforms sought to both broaden and strengthen them (Martin, 2000). Competitive tendering was no longer to be mandatory, but its coverage was extended to include all local government services. The seeming contradiction embodied in the Best Value principles of cost-saving and continuous quality improvement demanded greater control through performance indicators, training, monitoring and evaluation arrangements (Martin, 2000). Despite operational differences, in ideological terms Best Value shares much in common with the CCT regime. Competition and competitive tendering are central:

[R]etaining work in-house without subjecting it to real competitive pressure can rarely be justified. Should an authority exercise that choice and the service fail to provide Best Value, continuing in-house provision would not be sustainable.

(Cmnd 4014, 1998)