Verity House Agreement - Assurance and Accountability

3. Accountability

Alongside appropriate assurance arrangements, it remains necessary to consider and agree a shared understanding of accountability for the delivery of shared priority outcomes across local and national government.

Central to this shared understanding is recognising that Local Government and the Scottish Government are accountable to the electorate – the people of Scotland who we serve together. It is important that these arrangements are meaningful to members of the public, and that our collective narrative of shared progress towards improving outcomes for people and communities is accessible, understood and demonstrates the individual and collective responsibilities we have.

At a local level, council administrations and councillors are held to account by their constituents and within council chambers. At a national level, the Scottish Parliament holds the Scottish Government and Ministers to account. The Scottish Parliament has a legitimate interest, on behalf of the electorate, in collective delivery of outcomes across the public sector, and takes an interest in the actions of government, individual councils or Local Government collectively. Where this occurs, or indeed where councillors take an interest in Scottish Government activity, Ministers and Leaders will seek to:

• highlight the partnership approach and shared outcomes central to the Verity House Agreement;
• acknowledge the relevance of national policies and funding related to delivery at a local level;
• set out what evidence they hold about local and national delivery, including through the aforementioned outcome framework approach; and
• articulate clearly where accountability for local delivery and national policy sits, including where statutory duties apply to Ministers and/or Local Government and/or other partners such as health boards.

Further, it is important that, wherever possible, there is political-level representation from both COSLA on behalf of Scottish Local Government, and the Scottish Government to promote and strengthen the parity of esteem between both spheres of government.

Independent scrutiny has an important role in supporting improved assurance and accountability arrangements and in the sharing of good practice. The development of the Strategic Public Sector Scrutiny Network – which incorporates the bodies in the graphic below – supports greater cross-sectoral scrutiny of activity alongside support for more rigorous and robust self-evaluation, recognising that improvement is best supported by those working at a local level. It is important to consider scrutiny of Local Government and Scottish Government, through its public bodies and agencies’ activity equally in this space to promote mutual assurance and accountability.

The Accounts Commission and Audit Scotland are important partners given their role in providing independent and objective assurance, including through the Statutory Performance Indicator Direction issued by the Commission. The Direction seeks to ensure that councils demonstrate and report on how public money is being spent in a way that meets the requirements of ‘best value’ and that local outcomes are improving. Councils are also subject to annual audits by Audit Scotland or audit firms that look at finances and aspects of best value. Other inspection and regulatory bodies, some of which are appointed by, and accountable to Ministers, are also important partners in supporting assurance and accountability across the whole system. Crucially, this independent scrutiny of performance and delivery allows the public to hold the Scottish Government and Local Government to account.

Scottish Parliament committees will continue to play an important role in scrutinising Scottish Government policy, legislation, budgets and expenditure. Committees will scrutinise how the Scottish Government and Local Government work together, including the delivery of commitments within the Verity House Agreement.^[6] They will also be important to consider the role of current and potential future commissioners.

Effective accountability requires space for open, honest and challenging dialogue. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge that Ministers will not be precluded from commenting or seeking to understand perceived non-delivery, or other issues affecting performance of individual councils or Local Government collectively, in delivering progress towards shared priority outcomes. Likewise, Local Government leaders will not be precluded from demonstrating that national policy or funding challenges might contribute to perceived non-delivery or other issues affecting performance. In line with the principles of the Verity House Agreement, mutual trust and respect is critical and it is important that interventions in this space are constructive and recognise ongoing genuine collaboration to achieve our shared priority outcomes.

In this space, it is important to recognise that the Scottish Government and Local Government seek to deliver national outcomes based on a clear understanding and support for local contexts and needs. This approach aligns with the principle of ‘local by default, national by agreement’.^[7] As above, it is also important to consider the role of local, regional and national collaboration and partnership to support progress towards shared outcomes.