Communities and Local Government
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Direct contact 020 7944 4400- contactus@communities.gov.uk
Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) and comprehensive area assessment (CAA)
The current comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) measures local government performance and covers both organisational capacity and the whole range of a council's services. From 1 April 2009, CPA and most rolling programmes of inspection will be replaced by a new performance assessment framework - Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA).
The Audit Commission is working with six other local services inspectorates to develop and implement a methodology to deliver CAA.
Key aspects of CAA are:
- it will build on CPA
- the needs and aspirations of local people being at the heart of CAA
- a stronger focus on the experiences and view of local citizens, particularly the vulnerable
- the delivery of better outcomes for each local area by local authorities working alone or in partnership, rather than the performance of individual institution
- rationalisation of current approaches to reduce the potential for overlap and duplication
The first CAA reports are expected to be published around November 2009. These will include an independent assessment of performance and prospects for improvement in local areas against Local Area Agreement (LAA) targets and the wider set of 198 national indicators and draw on other evidence to deliver:
(i) an area assessment - looking at how well local public services are delivering better results for local people on local priorities, such as health, economic prospects and community safety and how they are to improve in the future; and
(ii) organisational assessments for councils and fire and rescue authorities (FRAs), which combine use of resources and managing performance themes into a combined assessment of organisational effectiveness. For primary care trust and police authorities, they will include use of resources assessments linked to the separate performance frameworks for the NHS and police authorities respectively.
Full CPA results for all councils and information about the developing CAA assessment framework are on the Audit Commission's website: www.audit-commission.gov.uk/.
