B61: Understanding RIEPs: Towards the delivery of more effective and efficient public services?

Created in April 2008, the nine Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs) are a significant facet of the government’s drive to promote efficiency and excellence in public services. According to the Improvement and Development Agency, they are set to play “an exciting and vital role in the new support arrangements for councils”. RIEPs are an amalgamation of two organisations: Improvement Partnerships, which were created voluntarily by local authorities and sought to share learning and good practice; and Regional Centres of Excellence, which have been instrumental in supporting councils to achieve far reaching efficiency savings over the previous spending review period.

This bulletin will begin by considering what RIEPs are in more detail and how they fit into the CLG’s and LGA’s ‘National Improvement and Efficiency Strategy’, before moving on to consider how they fit within the broader context of the local performance framework. The bulletin will finish with a number of concluding remarks around the challenges facing RIEPs.