CAA Now | Issue 16 | October 2009

People and views

Dr Jonathan McWilliam, Director of Public Health, Oxfordshire talks about his experience of CAA so far.

As Director of Public Health, my role is to take a high-level view of the health and well-being of the people of Oxfordshire. I feel CAA is a natural ally to my work. It took a comprehensive look at the issues across the county and accurately identified the long-term problems.

There was good alignment between my role and the role of the CAA lead assessor. We had useful conversations about public health concerns in Oxfordshire. It was reassuring to see the findings in my Public Health annual report and the assessment were the same - as they should be because both use essentially the same data. However, CAA has the added value of considering issues such as the environment and the local economy which have an impact on public health but are outside my areas of responsibility.

But I think the real value of CAA is that it focuses the minds of those who lead our public services to develop programmes of work to resolve our shared problems. It's a strong lever for action.

Quality of life in Oxfordshire is good for most people, but there are areas of deprivation where we need concerted action to tackle public health problems. CAA has helped to put these issues in front of partners. It forces all the local agencies to look together in ways that they can't do as individual organisations: they all have their own priorities, but CAA focuses them on common objectives.

I think the 'push' of CAA helped us in our successful bid for an LAA reward grant. We received £1 million for our most deprived areas.

I'm sure a big factor in the success of CAA is the way the local scene is understood by the assessors. Robert Hathaway, the lead assessor for Oxfordshire, and his team did a great job and they handled the process very well.

By helping to highlight issues and get people working better together, CAA will lead to better outcomes for people, I think it is useful and I hope it is here to stay.

Neil Cleeveley, Director of Policy and Communications, National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, shares his views on CAA.

From our perspective, CAA has been a good process - better than CPA. My impression is that assessors have involved voluntary and community organisations. I think engagement has been good in most places.

I also sense a difference in climate. In the past, some organisations may have felt uneasy about voicing their opinions about local statutory organisations where the relationship was of grant-giver and grant-recipient. With CAA they have felt much more like partners and there's been more of a spirit of cooperation and openness among partners.

When the Oneplace website publishes the assessments in December, I'd expect our members to use the information in two main ways. First, I think they have an important role to play in helping to spread the information to local groups and through them, to local citizens. They will be helpful in reaching marginalised groups and people who for one reason or another can't use the website. What voluntary and community organisations hear back from people will be a good test for CAA. Have the assessors got it right and do people recognise what's said about the quality of life in their area?

The second role will be as advocates. Voluntary and community organisations will help local groups and local people put pressure on the people running public services - or help them look for solutions - to put right any problems highlighted by Oneplace. This isn't just about red flags; it's about the messages that need to be pushed up the agenda.

And the CAA emphasis on the value of good partnership working should cement the position of voluntary and community sector organisations on partnerships. As 'full' partners, the sector can help to improve the reach of local strategic partnerships into communities, in turn giving people better ownership of and involvement in their local services.

We do need to be conscious that greater involvement can lead to fatigue in small organisations as they struggle to balance the extra meetings with the demands of the 'day job'. But the process itself should make LSP partners more aware of the need for the sector to be well resourced so it can play a full role.

Latest news

2008/09 Use of Resources for PCTs published

This month we published the 2008/09 Use of Resources (UoR) assessments for Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) (external link). 2008/09 was the first year that England's 152 PCTs were assessed using the new and more demanding UoR methodology, developed to support CAA. The assessment considers how PCTs manage their finances, workforce and assets to deliver value for money, and how they govern themselves.

The results show that PCTs have responded well to the new and more demanding assessment although none was given an 'excellent' rating this year. The headline 2008/09 results for the three themes in the UoR assessments were:

• In the managing finances theme 70 PCTs (46 per cent) were performing at minimum requirements and 80 PCTs (53 per cent) were performing above minimum requirements.
• In the governing the business theme 109 PCTs (72 per cent) were performing at minimum requirements and 42 PCTs (28 per cent) above minimum requirements.
• In the managing the resources theme 121 PCTs (80 per cent) were performing at minimum requirements and 24 PCTs (16 per cent) were performing above minimum requirements.
• Only two PCTs scored below minimum standards for the managing finances theme, one PCT scored below minimum standards for the governing the business theme and seven scored below minimum standards for the managing resources theme.
• No PCT performed excellently in any of the three themes.

Regional workshops for PR managers pave the way for the launch of Oneplace

The Audit Commission has held a series of regional workshops this month to help communications and press officers from local public services prepare for the launch of Oneplace on 10 December 2009.

Over 160 people attended the workshops in Bristol, Cambridge, Gateshead, Leeds, Leicester, London, Manchester and Solihull. Each two hour session included: an overview of CAA and the Oneplace website; the timetable for publication and how we intend to release the results to the media; and a Q&A session.

"The workshops provided a really good opportunity for us to meet fellow communications colleagues from a range of local public bodies, and to share and discuss our communications plans ahead of 10 December" says Callum Collins, Senior Regional Communications Manager at the Audit Commission.

Roundtable offers initial verdict on CAA

"Tough but fair" was the initial verdict of those attending a recent roundtable to discuss experiences of CAA. Held jointly by the Municipal Journal (MJ) and the Audit Commission, the roundtable brought together the Audit Commission's Chief Executive, Steve Bundred, and a host of agencies that have undergone CAA.

"Fists should have been banging the table, voices raised and accusations thrown - if you believe the disgruntled voices in some quarters of local government" reported the MJ. "But the initial verdict from councils, PCTs, fire authorities and housing associations is that it has been tough but fair." Albeit that there are "teething problems" and "some practical criticisms to address around coordination and overlap."

And from Steve Bundred the verdict is that it's far too early to judge the success or otherwise of CAA. "We won't even be able to judge that in December. It will only be clear when we see change that wouldn't have happened without it. That said we couldn't have done our recession report without CAA."

The consensus, says the MJ, is that "the process is about right for all partners. It's now about pushing on to the next level."

Read the full MJ article: 'First thoughts on the new inspection regime' (external link).

Signposting sustainability through CAA

The Audit Commission has worked with the Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA), the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and CAG Consultants (external link) to develop a new online resource for councils and their partners on demonstrating sustainability in their areas.

Available from the Improvement Network (external link) website, the resource aims to:

• show how local authorities and their LSP partners can take the CAA's underpinning theme of sustainability into account in their current and future work; and
• demonstrate the value of doing so through improving performance in relation to sustainability and the eleven sub-themes in the CAA area assessment.

It is designed primarily for corporate policy and performance officers in local government but will also be useful to other council officers, councillors and LSP partners. It will also act as an aide-memoire for CAA leads in the CAA inspectorates to help inform CAA judgements.

Supporting LSP Improvement

Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) coordinators are being invited to access a unique online tool designed to aid LSP performance improvement.

The LSP Improvement Tool (external link), available from the Improvement Network website, is one of a series of products developed from the Audit Commission national study 'Working Better Together? Managing local strategic partnerships (external link)', published in April 2009.

The tool is designed to help LSPs improve by providing a series of questions and responses around seven themes, and links to case studies and guidance materials. The questions in the tool follow a whole systems approach to performance improvement (used in the national study), relating to each of the following seven elements:

• Sustainable Community Strategy
• Staff and Skills
• Style
• Synergies
• Steering
• Standards
• Systems

Currently over 70 LSPs from across the English regions are accessing the tool, which also provides links to case studies and guidance materials for additional support.

Resource pack - reminder

A reminder that the CAA resource pack (external link) - designed to help raise awareness of CAA - is now available on the Audit Commission website. You may find the pack useful in explaining the new assessment system to your staff or colleagues. It includes sample articles and features for internal newsletters or uploading on your intranet; a slide pack for presentations; information videos and promotional items for the new Oneplace website.

Question time

Gareth Davies, Managing Director, Local Government and Housing, answers your questions about CAA.

How can people access assessments about their area?

The new Oneplace website will be launched on 10 December 2009. The url for the site will be www.direct.gov.uk/oneplace. But don't go there yet, because it won't be live until 10 December.

On this website people will find jargon-free, easy-to-read summaries on how their area is doing as well as access to more detailed information from the independent inspectorates behind CAA. Online reporting will make it easy to look up data about a local area.

What about people who don't have the internet?

We're working with libraries, voluntary organisations, local authorities and news agencies to ensure people without easy access to the internet get a chance to see the assessments as well. So for example, there may be information about the assessments in local newspapers or council newsletters, or at Citizen's Advice Bureaux. Most libraries have internet access and library staff will be able to help people use the website if they would like to see the assessments online.