It is an unfortunate feature of public life that bad news attracts far more attention than good news does. And so it is that governance tends only to become a topic of major interest to the public, senior officers and members of local authorities when something has gone wrong. The importance of effective governance is well known. There have been a succession of high profile inquiries from Cadbury to Francis which have stressed the key role of good governance to effective performance in the public and private sectors and yet we still see significant failures on a fairly regular basis which cause major damage to services and to the reputation of organisations. Local authorities operate in a more transparent environment than they ever have before. They are far more open than any other part of the public or private sector. This is a good thing enabling them to demonstrate the value that they offer to the people that they service. However, it also places them under intense and sometimes unreasonable scrutiny from their local armchair auditors. Add to this mix politics and the most savage reductions in funding ever seen and it is perhaps a wonder that there are not more failings in local government which has performed generally far better in terms of governance than other sectors.
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