CPA is a way of stimulating improvement and of making council performance relevant and understandable to the people that use their services. People benefit most from public services that are based on a real understanding of their needs. Councils should be able to tell people clearly how well they are performing and to get them involved in improving the services that they use.
This report identifies learning from CPA in order to contribute to improvement on two levels. Firstly, for councils it provides learning that they can apply to enhance corporate effectiveness and drive service improvement. Secondly, for regulators and government, it provides learning that informs the way ahead for CPA and the future relationship between central and local government.
The first CPA results were published in December 2002 and set a clear baseline position for the 150 single tier and county councils. Each council's overall CPA category (excellent, good, fair, weak or poor) is determined by combining its overall service score on current performance (based on existing information about council performance that is held by councils, government departments, auditors and inspectors) with a judgement about its ability to improve (based on a corporate assessment).
This report forms part of the Commission's commitment to provide learning from CPA. It is not the final word about all of the complex factors influencing local government performance - the Commission plans further work to explore some of these issues in more depth. But it does provide a baseline for future improvement in local public services.
Included in this report:
- building blocks for improvement
- patters of performance in services
- the impact of CPA