Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA)

What does it mean

What's the process?

More information

Contact us

What does it mean?

It's Government jargon - it stands for Comprehensive Performance Assessment. Essentially that means an overall judgement made by an external, independent body (The Audit Commission) on how well it thinks we cope as a local authority which manages resources to deliver quality services.

It's an audit process, which results in a score (Poor, Weak, Fair, Good or Excellent). The aim of the single worded judgement is to be clearer for people to understand how good their councils are, and if they are improving.

It aims to make the services we provide more focussed on improving people's quality of life, by making sure we are setting ourselves ambitious goals and ensuring that we are focussed on achieving them.

All of the district councils are going through the process and all the ones in Wiltshire were inspected at the same time (Kennet, North Wilts, Salisbury and us). The County Council has already been done - they scored Fair.

The CPA inspectors visited us during the week of 19 January 2004.

 

What's the process?

The first stage was for us to carry out a self assessment of how we see the Council as a whole and what we think the strengths and weaknesses are.

This was inspected by group of external people - from other local authorities and the I&DEA who visited us during the week of 20 October 2003 and challenged our claims, to check that what we said actually reflects the reality.

This was called Peer Challenge, and a report was produced, which was used by the CPA inspectors. They also asked for a lot of other documentation, plans, strategies and policies.

Click here to view the Peer Challenge Report (103Kb PDF document)

In addition we have to produce two other documents, which set out our approach to managing open spaces and how we go about managing local housing. These are scored by the CPA team, and the results contribute to our overall rating.

Further judgements are also made of how we administer housing and council tax benefits, our performance indicators, and the District Auditor gives a view about our arrangements and approaches to financial management.

The CPA inspectors were on site for a week, in January 2004, and they interviewed staff, and others to test what we have said.

All this information and evidence, is analysed and a report was produced on what they think our strengths and weaknesses are, how they rate us, and whether they think we will improve in the future.

 

How is West Wiltshire rated?

West Wiltshire District Council was rated as a FAIR council, with the capacity to improve.

The full CPA report is available by clicking this link and also from the Audit Commission’s website.

The main areas that the Council needs to focus on for improvement are:

• Work to improve the local strategic partnership and develop a community strategy for West Wiltshire
• Develop a corporate plan, which clearly shows what the Council plans to do over the longer term
• Improve the use and effectiveness of performance management, to actively use this to monitor where we need to improve services.
• Improve the communication and consultation so that Council services are developed to take account of the views and needs of all sectors of the community.

The Council is progressing well against each of these.

Summary of the scores

High level question	Theme	Score	Weighted score
What is the council trying to achieve?	Ambition	1	1
	Prioritisation	2	2
How has the council set about delivering its priorities?	Focus	3	3
	Capacity	3	3
What has the council achieved/not achieved to date?	Performance management	2	2
	Achievement in quality of service	2	6
	Achievement of improvement	3	9
In light of what the council has learned to date, what does it plan to do next?	Investment	3	6
	Learning	4	4
	Future plans	3	3
	Total Weighted score		39

Diagnostic Assessment:

For each of the key areas looked at within the diagnostic assessments the need for improvement, based on the risk of service failure and poor outcomes, is identified using the following scale.

• a = very low
• b = low
• c = high
• d = very high

Balancing housing markets (BHM) diagnostic assessment – b (low)

Public space diagnostic assessment – b (low)

Appointed auditor assessment

Appointed auditors are asked to score five areas which relate to the statutory code of audit practice. When scoring each area a range of issues are taken into account. These issues and the score that has been given in each area are set out in the table below.

Financial standing - 3

Systems of internal financial control - 3

Standards of financial conduct and the prevention and detection of fraud and corruption - 2

Financial statements - 3

Legality of significant financial transactions - 3

Scoring key:

• 1 = inadequate
• 2 = adequate overall, but some weaknesses that need to be addressed
• 3 = adequate
• 4 = good

Benefit Fraud Inspectorate assessment

The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) has undertaken the assessment in this appendix as part of the CPA process. The assessment covers two aspects, the current level of performance and the council’s proven capacity to improve. Each assessment is measured on a five-point scale (poor, fair, fair to good, good and excellent).

The current level of performance - FAIR

The council’s proven capacity to improve – FAIR TO GOOD

 

More information

For more information about the process, and results of other authorities, visit the Audit Commission’s website

Click here to view the Peer Challenge Report (103Kb PDF document)

Click here to view the Corporate Self Assessment (402Kb PDF document)

Click here to view our CPA Report (559Kb PDF document)

 

Contact us

For further information about CPA, please contact Paul Mountford, policy & communications manager, on 01225 776655 x540 or email pmountford@westwiltshire.gov.uk