Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit 30 th March 2009 Comprehensive Area Assessment Framework Martin Genge Performance Improvement Manager

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit What is CAA?  New approach to independently assess how well people are being served by their local public services  It will focus on how well councils and partners are delivering better outcomes and improving the quality of life for local people

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit Why is CAA different?  CAA is about areas as much as organisations, future rather than past performance, outcomes rather than ways of working, and local priorities as much as national targets.  Its span is broader than CPA and what individual inspectorates had been assessing.  It is an assessment of those things that contribute to quality of life in an area, such as quality of healthcare, levels of affordable housing, crime and fear of crime, educational achievement, attracting investment or an area's carbon footprint.

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit Key differences between CPA and CAA CPACAA Assesses the councilAssesses the area Assesses councils on the same thing in every placeFocuses on what matters most in each area Focus on national prioritiesBalanced focus on local and national priorities RetrospectiveForward-looking More weight given to processesGreater focus on outcomes and achievements Looks at council performance against hundreds of standard PIsLooks at performance against 198 national indicators Rigid annual processOngoing engagement Competing performance frameworks (CPA, JAR, APA)Aligned / integrated framework under aegis of single regulator Based on rolling inspectionRisk-based inspection Judgments and ratings internally focussedAccessible to local people Overall star ratingNo overall rating

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit CAA Framework Two main elements that will inform each other:  An area assessment will assess the extent to which councils and their partners are delivering improvements on the issues that matter to people within the local area  An organisational assessment will assess the effectiveness of the council by combining the external auditor’s assessment of value for money in the use of resources with a joint inspectorate assessment of council service performance.

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit Area Assessment (1) “Under CPA we tried to show how good we are – under CAA we score points for demonstrating how able we are in pointing to our weaknesses and what we are doing about it”  The area assessment will flush out how well an area knows itself and whether it has effectively targeted what the community wants by focusing on the following questions:  How well do our local priorities express community needs and aspirations?  How well are the outcomes and improvements that we need to achieve being delivered?  What are our prospects for future improvements?  The main focus for performance will be on the LSP

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit Organisational Assessment (1)  The organisational assessment is based on a set of 12 Key Lines of Enquiry across four themes – three for Use of Resources and one for Managing Performance.  The KLOE’s are more broadly based than under CPA and will embrace wider resource issues such as:  people and workforce planning  how the Council uses natural resources  The focus will be more on our value for money achievements, outputs and outcomes rather than on internal processes

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit Organisational Assessment Use of Resources  Managing finances: How effectively does the organisation manage its finances to deliver value for money?  Governing the business: How well does the organisation govern itself and commission services that provide value for money and deliver better outcomes for local people?  Managing resources: How well does the organisation manage its natural resources, physical assets and people to meet current and future needs and deliver value for money?

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit Organisational Assessment Managing Performance  There is no longer a separate DoT assessment. The elements of DoT that are relevant to CAA have been incorporated into the fourth theme, Managing Performance.  In assessing this theme, auditors will focus on how effective the organisation is at managing its people, natural resources and physical assets, to meet current and future needs and deliver VfM.

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit CAA Reporting – Area Assessment  Annual qualitative narrative with no numerical score or overall rating using evidence such as LSE and performance against NIS  Exceptional under or over performance may be 'flagged':  Red flags represent significant concerns about outcomes and future prospects for outcomes, which are not being tackled adequately – something different needs to happen to improve outcomes  Green flags represent exceptional performance or improvement of outcomes for local people, or promising prospects for improvement through innovation that others can learn from  The flags will be the means to manage the links between the area and organisational assessment

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit CAA Reporting – Organisational Assessment  Annual report based on the four themes to provide an overall organisational effectiveness judgement  Comment directly on the performance of key council services, for example, C&YP and adult social care  Theme scores for managing performance and VfM will be combined into a single score between 1 and 4

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit Timeline & Current Status » Use of Resources Assessment – » Final Report to Council - October » Managing Performance & Organisational Assessment – » Final Report to Council - October » Area Assessment – » Final Report to Council – October » Whole Assessment Published in Public Domain - December

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit Audit Committee Involvement » Governance Reports – End of September - September Committee » Audit & Inspection Letter – End of November - February Committee » Overall Area and Organisational Assessment – Reported to Cabinet