Few organisations are subject to the extensive level of internal and external scrutiny faced by LAs. Internally this includes self review, best value reviews and member scrutiny panels; externally there are themed HMI inspections, area wide inspections, Ofsted and ALI inspections of youth, community and adult education services as well as audit commission CPA inspections. These are joined by the most important inspection of all the JAR (Joint Area Review) - the joint SSI / Ofsted inspections of Children’s Services.

Most LA officers and members know the potential value of this scrutiny. They also know the burden it can produce, with the risk of distracting already hard-pressed staff from service delivery. This is where we can help. LAs sometimes need additional capacity to meet the peaks of workload that inspections create, whether it is support for producing pre-inspection documentation or preparing a post-inspection action plan. More fundamentally, LAs also recognise the value of supported self review and evaluation and our staff have significant expertise in this field.

Our services in this area include:

• Supported LA self review and evaluation

• LA mini “health checks” eg a review of the effectiveness of the LA senior management team or advisory service

• Pre-inspection support, including joint inspection planning

• Support with post inspection action planning

For Advisory support in a LA or any other institution please call Steve Davies on 07917 080203.

Or if you prefer you can send us an email at administrator@cocentra.com and we will contact you.