What we did
In December 2001 the Government announced the introduction of Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) in the Local Government White Paper 'Strong Local Leadership - Quality Public Services'. As a result of CPA, we stopped carrying out inspections of best value reviews. Instead, we carried out inspections of services that were included in the CPA framework - environment, housing and culture. We then targeted our inspection activity at areas of poorer performance identified through our CPA assessments.
How we did it
In May 2005 we published our approach to service inspections. In June 2006 we published the compendium of inspection policy and practice. This incorporated the inspection framework set out in the document above and also gives details of corporate assessments, direction of travel assessments and progress assessments carried out under CPA.
We also published documents setting out key lines of enquiry (KLOE) for different types of service inspection. KLOE documents set out the key questions, characteristics and descriptors that inspectors used to help them carry out inspections and make judgements.
Inspection results
All 2,014 inspection reports for councils published between 2000 and 2011 are published on this website.
Our inspection spreadsheet (XLS, 757kb) enables you to search for reports by council, inspection category or date.
What we learnt
Through our inspections we identified examples of good or innovative practice from which others could learn.