Best Returns

Best Value Guidance
for
Library Authorities in England

3 About best value

Best value is part of a broad package of reforms that affect all aspects of local government.  It aims to bring about continuous improvement to local authority services, and to give local people more say in the services they receive.

Best value forms part of the Government’s agenda to modernise the way that public services are provided.  The main themes of this modernising agenda are:

• ensuring that public services are responsive to the needs of citizens, not the convenience of service providers;
• ensuring that public services are efficient and of a high quality;
• ensuring that policy making is more joined-up and strategic, forward-looking and not reactive to short-term pressures;
• using information technology to tailor services to the needs of users; and
• valuing public service and tackling the under-representation of minority groups.

The Government plans to accelerate the pace of reform in its second term of office.  Government’s current aims for public service change are:

• to set high minimum standards in every public service, with an effective framework in place to ensure they are delivered;
• to build public services around the consumer, not the other way round; and
• to put the front-line first - to devolve greater authority and responsibility to those on the front-lines of public services. 

Government sees best value as the way of delivering these commitments at a local level, to make a difference to the services that local people receive from their authority: best value is a key element of the Government’s programme to modernise local government, representing one of the most far-reaching challenges facing all those responsible for local services. 

Best value legislation is set out in the Local Government Act 1999 and in statutory guidance.  The Act places on all local authorities in England a duty to make arrangements to achieve best value.  This is defined as:

“arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which they exercise their functions, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness”¹. 

The duty of best value applies to all public library authorities in England. 

As part of this duty, authorities are required to:

• publish an annual best value performance plan that reports on past and current performance, and on future priorities and targets for improvement (Best Value Performance Plans); and
• carry out fundamental reviews of all of their functions over a five-year period (Best Value Reviews), to encourage authorities to “think afresh about their services and how to deliver continuous improvements”².

Under best value all services and functions - including library services - are subject to independent inspection.

Government expects best value to produce significant and continuous improvements in local authority services.  Some of the building blocks to

best value already exist in library services - improved annual planning processes, national standards, approaches to consultation - and authorities should build on what they already do.  But simply rebadging existing activity will not be enough.  Best value requires a fundamental cultural shift if the expected ‘step-change’ in performance is to be achieved.  It also demands significant time and effort.  Library services should start working towards best value now - as many are - rather than wait until their best value review is due.  The earlier work starts, the more time there is to gather and analyse performance and comparator data, and the less onerous the review process should be.  

In any case, best value is about much more than carrying out best value reviews or ‘passing’ inspection.  It is about a way of working, a tool for driving continuous improvement in services for library users and for effecting organisational and cultural change.  As one of the case study authorities remarked of best value; “it’s not about passing the 11+ in the future, it’s about improving services now”.  The ethos behind best value is not new.  It is about good management practice.  And authorities should work towards integrating the principles of best value into normal work rather than seeing it as something extra.  After all, “better service delivery is the day job”³.

¹ DETR, Circular 10/99 - Local Government Act 1999: Part 1 - Best Value
² DETR, news release, February 2001
³ Audit Commission, Another Step Forward, 2001

4. Best value performance plans