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2005 CPA – the Harder Test: Q&A

What is CPA?

CPA stands for Comprehensive Performance Assessment. It is an inspection scheme run by the Audit Commission on behalf of the Government.

The CPA is intended to be used as an improvement tool by councils to help them provide even better services to local residents.

It is designed to reduce the number of inspections within councils. The Audit Commission claims to have achieved a 20% reduction in audit and inspection work in local government since 2002.

Why is it called the harder test?

Corporate assessments carried out from 2005 have changed. There is now a greater focus on leadership, partnership working, value for money and the achievement of local priorities. All councils will have the new style corporate assessment by 2008 as part of a rolling programme.

The new rating system has ‘raised the bar’ on what Council’s need to do to get a top score. Some authorities previously rated Excellent could receive less than four stars despite having stayed the same or improved.

Why has it got harder?

The CPA builds on learning from previous years and has been brought up to date to meet today’s challenges for councils.

The Audit Commission has given two main reasons for making it harder. Firstly, councils have a duty to continuously improve and that is reflected in the new assessment framework. Secondly, the public’s expectations of councils and the services they provide are continuously rising.

What does the CPA measure?

The Audit Commission uses a set of rules to score councils on how its main services perform, how it uses its resources and how well it is run.

CPA gives an overall council rating by looking at a council’s:

• Services
• Work with children and young people
• Adult social care arrangements
• Payment and collection of benefits (districts and unitaries only)
• Cultural services
• Environment services
• Housing services (districts and unitaries only)
• Use of resources
• Corporate capacity to improve services

The new CPA also clearly judges the quality and impact of each council’s efforts to promote user focus and diversity.

How do council’s know how they’ve done?

Under CPA - The Harder Test, councils will receive an overall performance category ranging from 0 to 4 stars, with 4 stars being the highest.

The former categories: excellent; good; fair; weak, and poor will no longer be used in single tier and county councils.

The new scoring system also grades the direction of each council's overall improvement using the following ‘direction of travel’ labels:

• Improving strongly
• Improving well
• Improving adequately
• Not improving adequately (or not improving).

How does the Audit Commission get its information on a Council’s performance?

A team of inspectors visit councils roughly every three years to carry out a thorough inspection of performance across all the key areas.

The Audit Commission also uses information provided from service specific inspections that are carried out by separate inspectorates on different timescales.

The Commission for Social Care inspection (CSCI), the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) and the Benefits Fraud Inspectorate all feed their findings into CPA.

How well has Worcestershire County Council performed?

We have been given four stars – the top star rating.

The direction of our overall improvement has been graded as improving well.

How was our score calculated?

Using their set of rules the Audit Commission has pulled together the following scores to come up with our overall rating.

Services

Children and Young People: CSCI and Ofsted awarded us the top score of three stars in their inspection. We are one of only three councils in the country to achieve this. Our improvement in primary league tables is also at well over the national rate with overall performance above the national average for the first time.

Adult Social care: We were awarded the top score of three stars by CSCI

Culture: We were awarded three out of four by the Audit Commission for our contribution to Culture Services and outcomes.

Environment: We were awarded three out of four by the Audit Commission

Use of Resources

Overall we score three out of four. This judgement is derived from five individual scores.

• Financial reporting – we scored four out of four
• Financial management – we scored three out of four
• Financial standing – we scored three out of four
• Internal control – we scored two out of four
• Value for money – we scored four out of four

We are the only county council in the country to score four marks for value for money and to be awarded two top marks in use of resources.

Corporate Capacity

We have not yet had one of the new style Corporate Assessments. Therefore our score was taken from our 2002 inspection. This was three out of four.

What is the Audit Commission saying about us?

The Audit Commission has commented on our progress in the last year:

“Worcestershire has a track record of significant improvement in priority areas, particularly children’s services and adults’ social care, where assessment ratings have again improved.

Overall, 65 per cent of service performance indicators have improved since 2002/03. Whilst overall performance in environmental services has improved, it is mixed with recycling and condition of minor roads still being below average.

There is a ‘value for money’ culture within the Council: the performance of services is generally good and delivered at comparably low cost.

The Council is developing its approach to serving diverse communities and improvement is supported by clear strategic direction, partnership working and sound procurement practices in key services.

The Council has robust plans for future improvement. It has a new Corporate Plan and is already delivering efficiency improvements from a long term, highways maintenance contract. A PFI for new schools in Bromsgrove is progressing well although progress on the Waste PFI is delayed.

Overall, the Council is strengthening areas such as risk management and workforce development and is well placed to continue to deliver, and sustain, improvement.”

What are we saying?

We are delighted that despite being one of the lowest funded authorities in the country we are amongst the top performing on education and social care – and the only county council to get the top score on value for money.

This doesn’t mean there isn’t more to do however, particularly in the areas of recycling and roads. We have developed a new plan Building on Success that sets out our priorities and how we plan to deliver them - based on what you and the Government have told us.

We know this is just an inspection and has its limitations. Like many councils we are not entirely happy with the new methodology. It can lead to overall judgments that can be affected by slight changes in just a few performance areas.

Whilst delighted with the results for Worcestershire we will still work closely with other councils to highlight our concerns on the process to the Audit commission

It is the residents we really want to be rated by this highly. We will continue to seek their feedback about how to improve in their eyes.

How do we compare regionally and nationally?

The scores were made public on Thursday, 15th December 2005, and we are amongst the top 25% of all councils that have achieved four stars.

We are very proud to be the only county council in the country to have scored top marks in value for money and only one of three in the country to score top marks for our services for children and young people.

What happens next?

CPA is just one part of our improvement story and not an end in itself. We are not complacent and know we have got much further to go.

What we really care about is how our residents rate us. We are dedicated to doing better for them by delivering on our priorities.

We will continue to improve our services and seek feedback from our service users on how we’re doing.