Comprehensive Performance Assessment

Barking and Dagenham

Background

In 2002, the Audit Commission introduced Comprehensive Performance Assessment to measure how Councils delivered services for local people and publicly report their performance in simple terms.

Every Council's performance was assessed through a series of on-site inspections and annual updates to service scores, such as housing and children's services.

Following these assessments, a judgement is made and every Council is categorised in to one of the following:

Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Weak

Barking and Dagenham was subject to a Corporate Assessment (CA) (one part of the CPA rating) in 2002. This means that we were tested on how well we understood the local community and provided community leadership. As a result of the CA and service score results, in 2002, Barking and Dagenham was rated as a Fair authority.

Barking and Dagenham's yearly Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) ratings have been as follows:

2002 - Fair
2003 - Fair
2004 - Fair

Comprehensive Performance Assessment 2005-2008

In 2005, the Audit Commission felt that Comprehensive Performance Assessment needed to develop further to support continuous improvement in local government and ensure that councils focus on the right things and in a challenging way.

As a result, the Audit Commission introduced a new framework for Comprehensive Performance Assessment, known as Comprehensive Performance Assessment - The Harder Test.

The new approach is a much tougher test for Councils and focuses more on service users and value for money. To reflect this change, the Comprehensive Performance Assessment categories have been renamed as follows:

Excellent - 4 stars
Good - 3 stars
Fair - 2 stars
Weak - 1 star
Poor - 0 stars

In addition to changing the categories to star ratings, every council is also given a Direction of Travel assessment, which indicates the progress being made to achieve improvements. The Direction of Travels labels are as follows:

Improving strongly
Improving well
Improving adequately
Not improving adequately

Following the introduction of Comprehensive Performance Assessment - The Harder Test, Barking and Dagenham was rated:

2007 - 3 star 'Good' authority and 'Improving well'

2006 - 3 star 'Good' authority and 'Improving well'

2005 - 2 star 'Fair' authority and 'Improving adequately'.

Comprehensive Area Assessment - 2009 onwards

Comprehensive Area Assessment will replace Comprehensive Performance Assessment in 2009 and will focus on place rather than individual bodies responsible for local services. The framework for Comprehensive Area Assessment is currently being developed by government.