Stop CAA work now, councils told
Author: Local Government Chronicle |
Local auditors are advising councils to stop all work relating to the comprehensive area assessment (CAA), with the Audit Commission set to outline on Friday how it will wind up the programme.
A council performance officer told LGC: ?The basic message from our local auditor, is stop all work relating to CAA. If you have not started the work, don’t bother.?
The officer added that instead of councils receiving a use of resources (UoR) score, local auditors had advised them they would instead get a ?broad brush? value for money statement on the direction of travel the authority was heading.
While the coalition government has pledged to scrap CAA, it had not clarified whether this year’s iteration would be completed before it was wound up.
The Audit Commission refused to comment on whether councils should stop all CAA-related work but issued a statement which said it would clarify its position.
The news will further fuel speculation that the Commission is going to have to make swingeing job cuts in the coming months.
The Audit Commission statement said: ?On Friday (27 May) we will be writing to LSPs and other organisations to inform them how we propose to bring work on CAA to a conclusion in the light of the government’s recent announcement.?