When the work on how an authority's services compare with those of others is concluded and the authority moves to the next step to consider how it will make further improvements, it seems to me—perhaps I am now too divorced from things—that there are not many examples of how an examination under the best-value regime has resulted in a significant change to services. I may be wrong on that. Unquestionably, the introduction of the audit system has sharpened up focus, but the fact that we have well-developed, elaborate and sophisticated performance management systems is of no interest to the public if such systems do not result in improvements to services.