COMPREHENSIVE PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT

1. The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) process originates from Government proposals in a White Paper published in December 2001. It forms part of the Government’s modernisation agenda to improve the quality of public services.

2. Over the past nine months every unitary and county council in England has been subject to the CPA inspection. The results for every authority are being published simultaneously on December 12th.

3. The inspection process has been managed by the Audit Commission, which was required by the Government to produce a judgement for every authority based upon the quality of local services and how well the council is run.

4. The assessment score produced by the Audit Commission consists of three elements:

a) An overall score from one (lowest) to four (highest) for how well the Council is run.

b) An overall score from one (lowest) to four (highest) for how the Council’ core services perform together with individual scores from one to four for each service area.

The core services are:

Education
Social Services
Housing
Environment
Libraries and Leisure
Benefits
Use of resources

c) An overall score based on these two scores expressed as either excellent, good. Fair, weak or poor.

5. Results for the Isle of Wight Council are as follows:

Overall assessment	Fair
How well the Council is run	2 out of 4

Service Delivery
Overall service performance	3 out of 4
Education	3 out of 4
Social care - children	3 out of 4
Social care – adults	2 out of 4
Environment	3 out of 4
Housing	2 out of 4
Libraries & Leisure	3 out of 4
Benefits	2 out of 4
Use of Resources	3 out of 4

6. Over the next three months the council will be agreeing an Improvement Plan with the Audit Commission to maintain progress on service improvements and corporate management.

7. Further information on the CPA can be found on the Audit Commissions web site (www.audit-commission.gov.uk)

8. A copy of the Audit Commission’s “Corporate Assessment” examining how well the Council is run is available by clicking here.