The Government could save billions of pounds by scrapping a flagship programme to assess and publicise the performance of local services, a think-tank report said.
The Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA), launched last year, brings together reports from six inspectorates to provide an overview of local services on the Oneplace website.
But the Localis think-tank said the system has induced a "culture of compliance" among councils and failed to improve the performance of local government.
Councils should be allowed to opt out of the CAA system and set their own performance measures, assisted by more local accountability and peer support, said the report.
In return, councils should be required to release more data, making public details of all spending over £500 as well as information about councillors - including their attendance and voting records and declared interests.
The report called for the scrapping of 25 indicators currently measured by the CAA process, along with a "rigorous check" on the remaining measures.
Any increase in local accountability must be tempered by an increase in power from central to local government, it said.
Localis said that the cost of CAA compliance alone is currently £2 billion, but suggested that savings could be far higher when the costs of distortions created by the system are taken into account.
The think-tank's chief executive, James Morris, said: "Local authorities are more accountable to central government than to their residents. Without doubt this has been a contributing factor in the disengagement of local people.
"The new system we propose can turn this underwhelming system of performance and assessment on its head."
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