This report makes six recommendations to support the widespread adoption of a common service standard across local authorities.
In May 2024, the Local Government Association (LGA) began a collaborative research project with West Berkshire Council into the use of a common service standard in local government. The research forms part of a workstream within the LGA’s ‘Sector Support Programme for Cyber, Digital and Technology’, which is funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The programme’s aim is to support councils with the design and delivery of secure public services in a digital age.
Two questions we hear regularly from councils are how do we define ‘good’ (or ‘great’) services and how do we measure quality?
Facilitated by a new partnership with LocalGov Digital we discovered that elected members a West Berkshire Council, had posed similar questions.
How could the council ensure services were delivered in a good and consistent way, finding efficiencies and improvements around their delivery, while also meeting the needs of the user?
We decided it would be worthwhile working together to review use of the Service Standard within local government.
Key Findings
- Are councils using the Standard? Not entirely. Across our data collection activities, we found inconsistent use of a common service standard. We found evidence that some principles of the Service Standard were used, and we heard about a range of barriers preventing its wholescale adoption.
- Where is adoption greatest? Of the 14 principles within the Service Standard, the most widely adopted elements were principle 1 (understand users and their needs) and principle 2 (solve a whole problem for users). The two principles with much lower levels of adoption were principle 8 (iterate and improve frequently) and principle 14 (operate a reliable service).
- Would a common service standard for councils be useful? Yes, for various reasons: it provides clarity, from a credible source, as to what good looks like and a standard for which to aim; it provides a common language and a set of guiding principles; it can help to deliver a more joined-up approach; it can improve confidence and assurance; it can help to provide a consistent set of experiences and quality; and it can help to control governance and financial approvals
- What, if anything, is challenging? Participants pointed to various challenges of using the Service Standard within a local authority. These included: securing leadership buy-in; language misalignments; inconsistencies in agile working; limited resources for testing; end-to-end assumptions; issues relating to the software market, commercial-off-the-shelf products and services (COTS) and legacy technology; and missing nuances relating to the analogue components of local government.
Download the full report
- Published by:
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LGA
- Reference code:
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67.26