Record number of councils achieve top four star rating in the last ever CPA

Published: 05 March 2009

Summary

 Record number of councils achieve top four star rating in the last ever CPA

 Detail

 Today sees the publication of the Audit Commission's assessment of single tier and county councils across England, and the final allocation of stars to individual local authorities.

The number of top-performing English councils has almost tripled since Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) - the Audit Commission's annual measure of English councils' performance - was introduced in 2002.

CPA's scope is wide - it looks at how efficiently councils are run, the quality of local services, and whether they are delivering value for money for the taxpayer.

CPA ends this year with 62 councils achieving 4 star status, having started in 2002 with just 22. This year's total is a record over the life of CPA, which has also seen 31 of the 149 councils make substantial improvements and leap two or more star categories.

This is the last ever round of CPA, so published alongside the 2008 report today is a special publication ‘Final Score’ giving an in-depth retrospective look at local government performance and the impact of CPA over its seven years.

Among this year's headline figures:

• 27 councils have maintained their position as 4 star councils for four years running.
• No council is in the lowest zero rating, nor has been for the last three years.
• 27 councils have risen by one star this year, and two by two stars.
• 91 per cent of councils performed consistently or well above minimum requirements for use of resources in 2008, and none performed below minimum.
• 35 councils are rated as ‘improving strongly’ - more than ever before.

However,

• 5 councils have dropped by two stars. A factor in 4 of these has been low scores for Children and Young People's Services.
• A further 21 councils have fallen by one star rating. A factor for some councils in this final year has been the removal of protected corporate assessment scores put in place temporarily to bridge the introduction of the revised CPA ‘Harder Test’ in 2005. Now that all councils have taken the harder test, year-on-year comparisons from 2005 to 2008 are possible.

Chairman of the Audit Commission Michael O'Higgins says:
"CPA has been a challenge to which local government has risen very well, and our retrospective report records the success of many councils that are to be congratulated.""As we say goodbye to the star rating system, it is heartening to see a record number of 4 star councils, and 29 rising by one or more categories in this last year alone. There will be many others who, although they have improved their performance, didn't quite make it into the next division. We hope they will all take this experience and commitment to improvement into CAA from April, and help us to reflect the wider impact of local public services on people's lives."

In recent years there was an increasing sense that CPA had run its course, not least because councils' performance had clearly improved overall. With many key local services now being provided in partnership - such as crime and disorder reduction, and children's trusts - a new challenge was sought which reflected councils' growing role as community leaders, and which asked more fundamental questions about service delivery from the citizens' perspective.

As a result, from April 2009 CPA will be succeeded by Comprehensive Area Assessment, a radical shake-up of the way public services in England are inspected and reported on. Having more of a user-focus, and relying more on already-existing data, CAA will require less on-site activity by inspectorates, freeing resources to concentrate on areas of particular concern, making it more cost-effective and better-targeted. Although there will still be organisational assessments of councils, they will also be assessed on their pivotal role in achieving improved local outcomes in partnership with other providers of services to the public.

Use of resources assessments for England's District Councils are also being published today by the Audit Commission.

Each council had a corporate assessment over a three year period, which assessed its ability to lead its local community having clearly identified its needs and set clear ambitions and priorities. Inspection teams included a peer officer and peer councillor. Since September 2005 these assessments have been conducted at the same time as the Joint Area Review of children's services led by OFSTED or the Commission for Social Care Inspection.

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