Recommendation 9

Councillor Pete Marland and Iain Murray both stressed the importance of focussing on outcomes.18 In response to our question on supporting greater transparency of spend and delivery of outcomes, MHCLG told us that there was significant work under way to produce a simple and 10 Q 41 11 C&AG’s Report, para 3.22 and Figure 13 12 Q 4; C&AG’s Report, Figure 13 13 Qq 35, 40 14 Q 40 15 C&AG’s Report, para 2.11 16 Q 59 17 Q 63; C&AG’s Report, paras 2.12, 2.17 18 Qq 16, 17 11 accessible outcomes framework for local government. It acknowledged that, unsurprisingly, outcomes were poorer in places that had traditionally received less money. It said that it wanted the framework to provide metrics to judge performance without being too onerous for local government.19 MHCLG acknowledged that it had probably been guilty of focussing on specific areas of spend, rather than overall expenditure as a whole. For example, MHCLG will measure the outcomes for a £1 billion grant on adult social care, but not for total adult social care spend. MHCLG did not provide any further details of when the outcomes framework would be published or implemented.20 Complexity of funding