It is hard not to feel some unease about the publication of
the Government’s ‘adoption scorecards’. Looking at the data it is very hard to
see how different local authorities compare, and it offers no insight into the
causes of the delays.
There is also insufficient data to perform any satisfactory
analysis. It seems very likely to me that some authorities may be quicker, but
have a lower success rate, while other authorities might take longer and get it
right more often. But we won’t find that out from the crude figures available.
I think the scorecards approach has been wrong. To speed up
the adoption process we need to know where the delays are occurring and why.
The scorecard just gives us unhelpful comparisons between different areas.
