1. THE ISSUE

Bath and North East Somerset Council is required to complete the Audit Commissions Comprehensive Performance Assessment process.

This report sets out the background to this requirement, the process to be followed and how Overview and Scrutiny input has been sought as part of the process.

2. RECOMMENDATIONS

2.1 That the Executive approves the submission in principle, recognising that a final draft will be submitted at the end of July for scrutiny by the Corporate Assessment Team in September.

2.2 That the Executive delegates approval of our self assessment submission to the Chief Executive and Council Leader, as required and set out in the Audit Commission consultation document March 2002.

3. FINANCIAL IMPLICATION

Resource requirements are being met from within existing resources, principally the Best Value inspection budget, in line with the Audit Commission consultation document issued March 2002.

4. THE REPORT

4.1 Background

CPA originates from the White Paper Strong Local Leadership - Quality Public Services.

The Government intention is that CPA will form the cornerstone of the Governments performance framework for local government to achieve the objective of better services to local communities. The aim is to "free up Councils to innovate and deliver improvements in the quality of services and effective community leadership"

The Audit Commission has been tasked to form a judgement of every English Unitary and County Council's performance and proven capacity to improve by late 2002.

4.2 Process

Completion of the CPA process will result in a judgement of the Authority based upon an assessment of our strengths and weaknesses in regards to the following:

The process that the authority must follow and the process that the Audit Commission will follow is set out at Appendix 1 but in brief the stages are Self Assessment, Corporate Assessment and Service Assessment.

Following completion of this process, the Council will be judged as either excellent, good, fair and poor, although these categories remain subject to further consultation. High performing Councils will benefit from a reduction in inspections and audits (and associated fees) as well as increased flexibilities and borrowing freedoms linked to PSA submissions. Poorer performing authorities will be subject to an increased but targeted inspection regime (and an associated increase in fees).

4.3 Self Assessment

The Council is required to answer each of 4 key questions based around 9 themes, setting out the context within which we deliver services. The key questions (with the 9 themes in brackets) are:

A one page action plan is also required as is a section on the local context within which the Council operates. Self assessment is required to be signed off by the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive.

4.4 Judging our capacity to improve

A multi-disciplinary corporate assessment team ("CAT"), comprising Audit Commission inspectors and auditors, a Councillor and a Senior Officer, from other Authorities will spend up to two weeks on-site from 9th September, validating the statements in the self assessment and examining our corporate management systems in more detail. As well as reviewing documentary evidence of what we do, inspectors will interview members, officers and partners to test the credibility of our self assessment and form a judgement of our corporate capacity to improve.

4.5 Service Assessment

Service assessment reviews of the effectiveness of local services and will be informed by:

On completion of these assessments, information will be fed by the Audit Commission into a numerical or rules based model which will result in a judgement score.

4.6 Key dates

· Cross Council CPA team established From March

· External challenge to self assessment 19 July

· Submit self assessment 31 July

· Round table discussion with CAT 6 Sept

· Fieldwork (CAT on-site) 9-20 Sept

· Report & feedback 18 Oct

· Judgement 22 Nov

· National media Dec 2002

4.6 Consultation

Group Leaders have been consulted during the drafting of our self assessment submission, the Executive member for Performance sits on the CPA project team, and two separate officer facilitated workshops were held for Group Leaders on 15 and 26 July. Comments have been received from many officers and our partners on the LSP; these have been incorporated in the latest draft.

A report was submitted to Overview and Scrutiny Management Board on 26 July 2002. Comments received will be given to this meeting.

APPENDIX 1 PROCESS MAPS

The process we must follow

The process the Audit Commission will follow