Best Value Guidance - a benchmark for local Compacts

The recent consultation on new Best Value guidance launched by the Department for Communities and Local Government includes some important guidelines for the way that local government is expected to work with the voluntary and community sector. Importantly, the new guidance puts Compact principles at the heart of the relationship, specifically stating that authorities should ‘honour the commitments set out in local Compacts.’

As documents which aim to encapsulate the manner and spirit with which public bodies and voluntary sector organisations work together, the value of local Compacts is that they are agreed locally, with people talking to each other, agreeing a set of commitments, undertakings, and values that underpins their work together.

Where this relationship works well we know that both sides benefit, money is saved, and better outcomes are delivered to local people. This Best Value guidance probably won’t make much difference in those areas as they’re already working well together and will already be following its principles.

But the good practice isn’t happening everywhere. In the Compact Advocacy team we saw an increase of almost 50% of cases and enquiries coming to us last year compared to the one before. A lack of consultation, concerns about commissioning and procurement processes, and short notice periods (sometimes none!) at the end of funding arrangements are the most common difficulties that organisations are facing.

Local authorities, it seems, have felt unable to follow their local Compacts when having to make difficult decisions in, admittedly, very trying circumstances. The Best Value guidance is a welcome and timely reminder to local authorities that they should honour their local Compacts when working with the voluntary and community sector, giving at least three months’ notice at the end of funding, and ensuring early engagement and consultation.

The commitments and principles in Compacts aren’t just a ‘nice extra’ which can be ignored when times get tough. They are an agreed way of working together. And they have real impact. Giving three months’ notice at the end of funding for example isn’t an arbitrary time which has been fixed on. At the end of a contract, which remember an organisation is performing on behalf of the local authority, they will have to make plans to wind up the service, inform service users, perhaps make staff redundant, and maybe move premises. 3 months might not be enough time to do all of this in reality, but being able to rely on it, and other important Compact principles, is a start.

The Best Value guidance is out for consultation now, with the final version to be published later in the year.