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Local authorities across England know all about Comprehensive Performance Assessments, and the process is poised to spread its tentacles yet further, writes David Harding.

Like them or loathe them – and let’s be honest many people in local government have chosen the latter option – Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPAs) are here to stay.

They are not merely part and parcel of the current government’s approach to “modernising” public services, they are the very epitome of all that ministers have expressed about updating the local town hall since they came to power in 1997.

CPAs, which emerged from the Strong Local Government – Quality Public Services White Paper published in December 2001, place their faith in the tickbox approach to evaluating public services so much in vogue at present.

Judging Criteria
Local authorities are judged against a range of criteria and this ultimately goes towards a final, and very public, evaluation of just how good a council is at doing its job. At the end of a process which involves self-evaluation, outside inspection and scrutiny, councils are graded into one of five categories: excellent; good; fair; weak; and poor.

They reward success by granting freedoms to those authorities judged to be delivering quality services. Conversely, those that are poor at service delivery will feel the fiery breath of ministers on their necks. In the worst case scenario those thought to be incapable of improving things themselves will have their responsibilities taken away and given to outside experts.

First Results
So far 150 English single tier and county councils have gone through the process. The results, announced at the very end of last year, have so far been sketchy. Twenty-two were deemed to be “excellent”; 54 were “good”; 39 were “fair”; 22 were “weak” and unluckily for 13 councils they received the dreaded “poor” grading. That just over half of those authorities (76) were rated in the top two categories would suggest that local government is stronger than its critics might suppose.

However, as with all new systems there have been teething problems, and significant ones at that. Two unhappy councils, Salford and Torbay, have instructed solicitors to seek a review of the assessments they received from inspectors. They may be here to stay but no one said CPAs would not be controversial.

Next in Line
Now the focus is turning to the district councils. They are next in line to be judged by the Audit Commission inspectors. So what can district councils and their finance staff expect from the CPA procedure now it is turning its steely gaze upon some of the smallest authorities in the country?

A lot of extra work is the probable response but the answer, so far, is none too clear. In a consultation paper published in October 2002, Delivering Comprehensive Performance Assessments for District Councils, the Audit Commission said it intended “to develop and implement CPA for district councils with all results available by December 2004”.

On that basis the 240 or so district councils in England (the Welsh and Scottish approaches to CPA are still being thought through) should expect to see inspectors arriving at the council gates some time during this year or the first half of next year.

The timetable then is slowly evolving. The methodology is even less clear at present.

At the beginning of 2003 – 8 January to be precise – the Commission updated district councils on what exactly will happen. In February, the Commission is undertaking trials with councils in the West Sussex area to establish what the “full roll out” of the CPA programme will ultimately look like when it comes to the districts.

Proposed Process
What seems likely is that councils will receive one inspection rather than “two parallel thematic inspections and a separate peer challenge to a council’s self-assessment”. What also seems likely is that the Commission will “sample the council’s service delivery performance through two case studies. These will cover the council’s contribution to balanced housing market strategies and its management of public open space.”

At the end of the process the Commission will “produce a single report, which will cover the overall corporate performance and include the two case studies”. The Commission has always stated its intention of developing the approach to CPA as the project progressed towards a more cross cutting approach and away from a specific service framework. This reflects local people’s experience of service delivery through cross cutting initiatives that focus on “people” and “place”, not institutions, their structures and practices.

Concerns Voiced
The Commission is intent on trying to show that it will be fair to district councils when it comes to their turn for assessment. However, that has not been enough to placate everybody. Many of the concerns that have been voiced centre on the capacity of district councils to prepare for and help inspectors complete the scrutiny process, because of the size and relative lack of wealth of authorities at this level.

And not only that, there are also fears that districts will have to divert important staff, including those that work in finance, away from their “day jobs” towards helping to prepare the council for the long assessment ahead.

In short, an intensive CPA process will impinge on a district council’s resources – both financial and manpower – just to satisfy the inspectors. And it is a fear that remains, at the moment, a justifiable concern.

The Commission has said that it will “minimise the demands on councils’ resources” but as the procedure is so new it is hard to know at the moment what will be demanded of staff on a day-to-day basis. Experiences among single tier and county councils are only now emerging, and there seem to be quite large discrepancies between what different authorities invested in terms of finance and people in getting through the CPA process.

People are reluctant to spell out just what they spent on CPA but some concede privately that it was not cheap. On that basis alone some districts will no doubt be spending money they would rather be using elsewhere.

The Role of Finance Staff
Finance staff then will be crucial to the CPA. By overseeing the cost of the whole process they will be important to what is going on, even if they do not get involved in any other way. And if the experiences of other types of authority is anything to go by, then the finance team could be central to what goes on in terms of CPA, not just in keeping their eyes on the books.

If they choose to copy their peers, they may establish policy review teams composed of staff central to the process. Such teams will oversee the whole process from self-assessment through to inspection and the final grading from inspectors. Whatever path councils choose to negotiate through the process, finance staff will play a key role.

District councils will undoubtedly utilise the expertise of larger councils in the region, to help guide them through the CPA. For example, Buckinghamshire County Council is beginning the process of guiding district councils – such as South Bucks – through the assessment maze. This will involve workshops and close collaboration with staff from district councils.

However, experiences elsewhere suggest each council will take an individual path through CPA, which means the exact level of involvement of the finance staff will differ from council to council. CPA is about to become a live issue for district councils across England, as finance staff will shortly discover.

David Harding is a freelance journalist

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