The number of councils that have not had a corporate peer challenge (CPC) since 2012 will be reduced by half in 2018/19, the sector's Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) has agreed.

About 100 councils have yet to undergo a CPC more than five years after the programme was introduced, according to the latest available data.

But the IDeA has now agreed in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that ‘every council will have received a corporate or finance peer challenge, between 2017 and March 2022, and acted on the resulting recommendations to improve their performance.

The MoU read: ‘The IDeA will track and monitor the programme to ensure that support is being taken up by members and non-members alike, and to demonstrate take up by local authorities from different UK regions, authorities of various political control and those of varying authority type.

‘The CPC has recently been refreshed and strengthened.

'The Local Government Association (LGA) will proactively market peer challenge to those councils with zero/low take up.

‘The LGA will write to local authority leaders and chief executives in April to publicise the improvement offer to local authorities and the core details contained in this MoU.'