Reminder: the importance of completing information returns

Within part 10 (Ethical Standards) of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 it states that local authorities must send a periodic information return to us when we request one.

The periods we have specified, in the interest of not placing an unnecessary burden on local authorities, are the financial year quarters. In addition, we request a further return on an annual basis, meaning that there are five information returns required per year.

The information returns are extremely important. We need them to keep us up-to-date with how the local framework is functioning. They allow us to identify individual authorities that are not complying with the local standards framework or who are facing difficulties in implementing it.

So far authorities have been responsive in providing us with information on their experience, and the average percentage of returns completed for each quarter of the year is 99%. Over the 6 quarters for which we have requested returns, there have been just 13 instances where authorities have not provided a response. This is not bad when you consider there are over 400 authorities that we send requests to.

However, it often takes a significant effort to collect all of the returns. Roughly 75% of authorities complete their return by our deadline which is 10 working days after the close of each quarter. But the remaining authorities, who number more than 100, require multiple e-mail reminders and telephone calls before they complete their return. This is unacceptable, as it means it takes us longer than we would like to pull together all of the data and report on our findings.

Ultimately, we expect the authority’s monitoring officer to complete our information returns. However, they can delegate this task to a colleague if they wish. For consistency we will always send our email correspondence directly to the monitoring officer, but if they know that they are not going to be available when a return is due they should delegate the task to somebody who is.

For more information on Standards for England’s information returns please contact our monitoring team on 0161 817 5300.

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