The English Audit Commission and its Comprehensive Performance Assessment Framework for Local Government, 2002-2008

Abstract

This article evaluates the recent regulatory relations of the English Audit Commission with local government. The commission's Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) initiative, which was central in defining this relationship, is taken as the key policy object. The appraisal explores the commission's performance on its own positivistic terms, focusing on the behavioral and cultural theories, institutional assumptions, and rational presumptions underpinning CPA measurement. These three yardsticks are used to trace the overall consequences of CPA's eight judgmental years on the local government polity. Noting the tenacity of positivist thinking in English government, the argument examines two counterfactual regulatory possibilities based on the diverging readings provided by interpretivism and relational materiality.

Keywords:

• Audit Commission
• England
• local government regulation
• managing performance
• positivism