Resources and guidance

• CAA evaluation: a sector perspective on year 1
• First Oneplace national overview report
• Establishing the costs of CAA
• Comprehensive Area Assessment: An evaluation of year 1
• Briefing the media for CAA: guidance notes from the LG Group
• CAA briefing materials for councillors and staff
• CAA: how is it measuring up so far?
• CAA guidance for inspectorate staff
• CAA trial sites evaluation – final report
• Second joint inspectorates consultation paper
• Looking Back, Moving Forward: accounts of council improvement by leading politicians
• CAA Now: the Audit Commission's e-newsletter
• CAA and local leadership conference – some issues for councillors and partnerships
• Councillors' guide to CAA
• Customer insight guidance
• Customer insight protocol

CAA evaluation: a sector perspective on year 1

The LGA has published an evaluation of the first year of CAA.

The evaluation, produced in January 2010, demonstrates that, while the reality of CAA has not yet met the vision, the new focus on outcomes has been helpful, reinforcing partnership working at the local level. However, the burden has not reduced and inspectorate activity needs to be more joined up locally. The report makes a number of recommendations about how CAA should be implemented in year 2.

CAA evaluation – on the LGA website

First Oneplace national overview report

This report, published in February 2010 by the six independent inspectorates, considers how well the £200 billion spent on local public services is meeting people's needs. It concludes that local public bodies need to learn from each other and work more closely together if they are to improve services and increase value for money.

Oneplace national overview report – on the Oneplace website

Establishing the costs of CAA

This study, published in March 2010 by the Office for Public Management (OPM), was commissioned by the Audit Commission on behalf of the joint inspectorates. It's aim was to:

• estimate the costs of CAA incurred by local authorities as a sector in complying with its inspection and audit requirements in its first year
• compare CAA year one costs with costs incurred by local authorities under the previous CPA regime.

Independent reports – on the Audit Commission website

Comprehensive Area Assessment: An evaluation of year 1

This evaluation was produced by Shared Intelligence in partnership with Cardiff University and Ipsos MORI. It addressed two key questions about the first year of CAA:

• Have the core components of CAA been delivered effectively, and has it met its core process objectives?
• To what extent and in what ways has CAA driven change in the behaviours of local institutions and partnerships?

Shared Intelligence website – contains a link to the report

Briefing the media for CAA: guidance notes from the LG Group

These guidance notes from the LG Group offer ten points to consider when writing press releases and communicating with the media.

Briefing the media for CAA

CAA briefing materials for councillors and staff

The IDeA (now Local Government Improvement and Development) has produced some simple briefing materials on CAA for councils and partner organisations. There are two sets of briefing notes aimed at councillors and staff respectively, outlining:

• what CAA is
• when and how assessments will be published
• some potential implications for the ways of working for councillors and officers.

We also provide a shorter version of each briefing covering the main points.

Local authorities and their partners may use these documents, in whole or in part, in their internal communications on CAA.

• CAA briefing notes for councillors – long version (PDF, 8 pages, 141KB)
• CAA briefing notes for councillors – short version (PDF, 2 pages, 115KB)
• CAA briefing notes for staff – long version (PDF, 7 pages, 139KB)
• CAA briefing notes for staff – short version (PDF, 2 pages, 107KB)

For versions of these briefings in MS Word file format please contact:

David Armin
Improvement Manager, LG Improvement and Development
email: david.armin@local.gov.uk

CAA: how is it measuring up so far?

This short paper, published in September 2009 by the LGA, summarises the views of council leaders who responded to an invitation to give their views on the way in which CAA was being implemented in their areas. It also explores some of the implications of the finding.

Comprehensive Area Assessment: how is it measuring up so far? – on the LGA website

CAA guidance for inspectorate staff

The Audit Commission, with partner inspectorates, have produced online CAA guidance for inspectorate staff to support them in carrying out their assessments.

Guidance for inspectorate staff – on the Audit Commission website

CAA trial sites evaluation – final report

The 10 CAA trials are now finishing. The LGA and IDeA (now Local Government Improvement and Development) worked with the councils involved to evaluate the trials and draw out lessons from them. Based on their experience, this report makes a number of recommendations for developing CAA further, which the LGA will be taking up with the inspectorates.

The trial councils were keen to pass on their experience to other councils, so the report contains several key messages about how councils can best get ready for CAA.

Download the 'Comprehensive Area Assessment Trial Sites Evaluation' final report (PDF, 8 pages, 173KB)

Second joint inspectorates consultation paper

The inspectorates published their second joint consultation paper in July 2008. Outlined below is a summary of key proposals:

• CAA will assess outcomes delivered by councils working alone or in partnership – for example, health and wellbeing, community safety, children’s and older people’s services.
• CAA will replace comprehensive performance assessment (CPA), children’s services joint area reviews (JARs), annual performance assessment (APA) of services for children and young people and social services star ratings. Performance frameworks for specific services – such as schools, colleges, police, probation, and health and social care – will continue.
• CAA represents a fundamental change in the way councils and their partners are assessed. It involves a forward-looking assessment of the prospects for achieving shared priorities by the council and other local partners.
• The proposals envisage a streamlined framework involving two assessments: the area assessment and a scored organisational assessment.
• CAA will change the way inspectorates engage locally – moving from rolling programmes of on-site inspection to ongoing relationships with local areas.
• The inspectorates will look for high-quality local performance management data and will take account of any locality self-assessments and only undertake inspection activity where necessary.

LGA response to the second joint consultation – on the LGA website

LGA 'on the day' briefing on the second consultation – on the LGA website

Audit Commission CAA webpages – on the Audit Commission website

LGA response to the first joint consultation – on the LGA website

LGA publication 'Challenging Ambition for Areas' – on the LGA website

Looking Back, Moving Forward: accounts of council improvement by leading politicians

A collection of eight leaders’ and one elected mayor’s personal accounts of their council's improvement journey. All of the journeys faced by these leaders were unique. All of the accounts are significant, complex and represent collective endeavours.

Looking Back, Moving Forward

CAA Now: the Audit Commission's e-newsletter

The Audit Commission publishes a regular e-newsletter, 'CAA Now', which includes the latest CAA news and progress updates, reports from around the country, and answers to many questions. Subscribe to the newsletter from the following page:

CAA Now – on the Audit Commission website

CAA and local leadership conference – some issues for councillors and partnerships

The IDeA conference 'Local leadership, better outcomes and the CAA' took place on 24 April 2009. Aimed mainly at councillors but also of benefit to officers and partner organisations, the event placed the comprehensive area assessment (CAA) in the broader context of:

• local leadership and accountability
• partnerships
• the underlying driver of achieving better outcomes for communities.

Although most delegates were from the northern regions, the messages from the conference are of interest and relevance across the country. Presentations included:

• ‘CAA – a new way of assessing services’: Ian Carter, Head of Local Government Strategy, Audit Commission and Gill Robinson, CAA Methods Manager, Care Quality Commission
• ‘CAA in practice – lessons from a trial area’: Jane Scullion, IDeA North West Regional Associate and former Assistant Chief Executive Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
• ‘The role of scrutiny in partnership accountability and delivery’: Jessica Crowe, Director Centre for Public Scrutiny
• ‘Working with CAA to achieve better outcomes – opportunities and challenges for elected members’: Councillor Steve Houghton, Leader Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council and Chair, One Barnsley local strategic partnership
• ‘Support for the transition to CAA’: David Alston, IDeA Deputy Regional Associate

Local leadership, better outcomes and the CAA conference report (PDF, 6 pages, 79KB)

Copies of the presentations listed above are available on the policy and performance Community of Practice (CoP).

To join the policy and performance CoP, first register on the CoP website – it only takes five minutes. Once you’ve registered, search for 'policy and performance'.

Join the policy and performance CoP

CAA and local leadership presentations – in the policy and performance CoP document library

Councillors' guide to CAA

LG Improvement and Development (formerly IDeA) has developed some workshop materials to help explore the implications of CAA for councillors. Examples of these materials can be found on the policy and performance Community of Practice (CoP):

Policy and performance CoP document library

If not already a member you can join the CoP through the link above. Councils can use these materials themselves, but if you would like to discuss how we can help you, please contact your regional associate:

LG Improvement and Development regional associates

In September 2008, the IDeA and the LGA published a guide to CAA for councillors, outlining the changes to come in April 2009. It also describes the differences between CAA and the old comprehensive performance assessment (CPA).

Download the 'Councillors' Guide to CAA' (PDF, 6 pages, 250KB) 

Customer insight guidance

We have published ‘Insight: Understanding Your Citizens, Customers and Communities’, a guidance document for councils and their partners on putting in place and using customer insight.

With the new comprehensive area assessment (CAA) requirements coming into effect in April 2009, councils and their service partners must show a collective understanding of their communities.

Although the detail of CAA is still evolving, the new guidance lays out the expectation that local partners must: 

• show they understand their community – in particular, the needs and aspirations of vulnerable groups – and create local priorities that reflect those groups’ needs and aspirations
• seek to improve their customers’ experience of services and tailor services to local needs.

Crucially, councils must take a coherent, structured approach to customer insight. CAA will not provide a road map for this journey, but will allow councils to develop their own approaches to suit their communities’ needs.

Councils can work together to share customer insight information and pool resources and skills. By working together, they can also address issues common to many communities – like childhood obesity, for example.

Download the full customer insight guidance ‘Insight: Understanding Your Citizens, Customers and Communities’ (PDF, 28 pages, 1.08MB, large file)

Customer insight protocol

High-quality citizen insight is essential to enable councils and their partners to set priorities for their area, manage performance and improve the experience of their customers.

CAA will require councils and their partners to develop a strong understanding of customers and communities. 

Improving customer focus in your council

We have also been working in partnership with the LGA and National Consumer Council to understand how local councils can become more customer-focused.

Customer Insight Protocol – on the LGA website