• it has fundamentally challenged if it has established the need for the service and who it is for
• it is clear how the authority used internal and external challenge and what changed as a result
• it used external scrutiny, views of local people and searching comparisons to drive these challenges
• these comparisons informed challenges about what services to provide, who to provide them to, how much they should cost, and whether the current provider of the service is the best one
• challenges were not just raised, they were followed through into specific proposals for a significant change in performance and approach
• the service’s aims have changed as a result of self-critical assessment of whether it meets the authority’s aims

Source: Audit Commission, Seeing is Believing, 2000 (extract)