Beyond the checklist: why culture is the real test of Best Value

Read our full response to the consultation

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The Best Value duty is a foundation of English local government. Since the Local Government Act 1999, councils and a range of other public bodies have had to show they are “mak[ing] arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness”.  

Until 2010, the government ran a detailed national system to judge where councils were, and weren’t, delivering Best Value. Overseen by the Audit Commission, it saw councils report against a suite of national performance indicators and face national inspection.  

That system was dismantled in 2010/11. The duty remained, but the means of judging whether councils meet it weakened. Auditors still have important duties in assessing value for money, but for the past 15 years commentators have called for stronger national oversight.  

Why the guidance matters now 

The government has now consulted on revised statutory guidance on the duty. The current version was issued in May 2024, shortly before the general election. Since then, the context for local government improvement has shifted markedly. More councils now rely on Exceptional Financial Support, and funding pressures in special educational needs and disabilities and adult social care continue to leave council finances fragile, putting at greater risk councils’ Best Value obligations. The government’s ambitious public service reform agenda promises to ease some of these pressures in the long term, by unlocking opportunities to find savings through deeper collaboration, and earlier intervention on matters like health and care. But in the short term, the resource needed for structural reform and transformation could compound them.  

Given these challenges, the government needs a support and intervention regime that doesn’t just manage failure when it happens, but helps councils, and the wider sector, spot and deal with problems early.  

What the draft guidance does 

The draft guidance sets out six guiding principles for Best Value, framed by seven Best Value themes carried over from the 2024 guidance. These bring welcome structure to how councils think about the duty. For each theme, the guidance also describes the characteristics of a well-run authority and of one at risk of failure.  

Culture is the missing piece 

We made some specific suggestions on how these characteristics are described and presented. But the main thrust of our response was about culture: the relationships, behaviours, values and attitudes of the people working within the governance framework. Checking that processes, rules and formal systems are in place tells you whether the structural conditions for meeting the duty exist. That’s only part of the story. Recent cases of failure and intervention in local government have been governance failures driven by failures of organisational culture.  

Culture is hard to measure. That difficulty sits at the heart of the guidance, and of how councils choose to respond to it once it’s published.  

What more could the government do? 

In our response, we suggested three changes that would help councils manage this challenge: 

• A closer link to Delivering Good Governance in Local Government, the framework from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives. This would connect the duty to how councils prepare their annual governance statements 

• A clearer link to the wider improvement framework the government is building, including the new Local Audit Office, the Local Outcomes Framework and the public service reform agenda. This should spell out the precise triggers for appointing government Envoys and Commissioners, describe non-statutory intervention and support more fully, and give government-directed Best Value reviews clearer key lines of enquiry, backed by defined evidence sources 

• A clear route through intervention when it’s needed. Commissioners should be better supported locally, by audit committees, external auditors and overview and scrutiny committees, and nationally, by the Local Government Association’s sector improvement offer and bodies such as CIPFA 

How Grant Thornton can help 

External auditors play an important role. But Grant Thornton is also in a position to help its non-audit local government clients as a strategic advisor. We can work as a partner to diagnose risks and challenges relating to governance, and to make sure that a rigorous understanding of Best Value underpins major change and transformation, including new approaches to designing and delivering services.  

Ready to move your authority’s improvement journey forward? Spot emerging governance risks early, make change and transformation stick, and build candid relationships between members and officers.