Audit Commission

Following the final round of consultation with local public services before CAA reports to the public for the very first time in December, local partnerships will have up to ten days to ask for a review of their area assessments.

The six inspectorates responsible for Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) have announced the extended review period, double the five days originally written into the published framework.

Steve Bundred, Chief Executive of the Audit Commission, explains:
'The original proposal was to give local partnerships five days to ask for a review of their area assessment, in keeping with the time individual organisations have to ask for reviews of their organisational assessments.'

'But councils and representative bodies fed back that this wasn’t enough time for partnerships to consider and respond, especially in the first year of CAA. So we’ve listened to what they’ve said and agreed, across the six inspectorates, to extend the period to 10 days during this first year of operation.'

The decision applies only to red flags in the area assessments – the narratives that tap into people's perceptions of their local services and quality of life. Councils and fire and rescue bodies will continue to have up to five days to respond to the more familiar organisational assessments, which are published at different times by different inspectorates.

The publication date for CAA assessments is now agreed as 10 December 2009. This will be when the new CAA website goes live under the banner oneplace, as revealed last week. Area and organisational assessments for every place in England will be available from that date on the web, particularly via the government’s Directgov site, and CAA information will be published in other formats for those not on-line.

The consultation on the review process covered more than 800 local services between 30 April and 5 June 2009, and 62 organisations responded to the consultation. A detailed breakdown will be available soon on the Audit Commission website, alongside the revised Joint Inspectorate CAA Review Procedure and Audit Commission review procedure for use of resources and CAA.

As a result of the consultation one other change was made to the procedures - to extend authority to ask for a review of the area assessment from the Chair to include the Deputy Chair. No other elements of the Framework published on 10 February 2009 have been changed.

Notes to editors

1. Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) is a partnership between the Audit Commission, Care Quality Commission, Ofsted, and Her Majesty’s Inspectorates of Constabulary, Prisons and Probation.
2. It will look at how well local services are working together to improve the quality of life for local people, making straightforward independent information available to people about their local services, helping them make informed choices and to influence decisions.
3. CAA is about people and places, will give people a snapshot of life in their local area each year, will help local services improve quality of life in their area, will help people understand if they are getting value for money from their local services.
4. CAA began in April 2009. Public bodies are being assessed at present, and CAA will publish its first reports for all areas of England on 10 December 2009 via the oneplace website.
5. The six partner inspectorates will provide a joint assessment of what it is like to live in each area of England, and assess the prospects for sustainable improvement in the future. For the first time, local public services will be held collectively to account for their impact on better outcomes. This means that CAA will look across councils, health and social care bodies, police forces, fire and rescue services and others responsible for local public services, which are increasingly expected to work in partnership to tackle the challenges facing their communities.
6. CAA is also being used by the inspectorates to better coordinate their activity and reduce the cost of inspection and its demands on the time of front line professionals.
7. The oneplace site is under construction, and its web address will be publicised before CAA’s first reporting on 10 December 2009.
8. Directgov is the nation’s official website providing everything you need to know about essential government information. From taxing your car to ordering a new passport, from checking your benefits entitlements to searching for jobs in your area, Directgov makes accessing government information easier. Directgov is available via this link http://www.direct.gov.uk
9. Further details about the role of the Audit Commission can be obtained from - http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk