Self evaluation of your area

The IDeA (now Local Government Improvement and Development) and LGA supports robust self evaluation by councils and their local partners. Strong self awareness about current performance, capacity and future challenges is vital to delivering sustained improvement in the future.

Self evaluation of progress towards achieving local targets should be an important part of the performance management framework for councils and their partners working in local strategic partnerships (LSPs). It is an important tool in its own right. But self evaluation can play an important role in the preparation for CAA.

Before the first round of CAA, a significant number of local areas undertook a self evaluation process. An LGA report of January 2010 revealed the extent of self evaluation:

CAA Watch: monitoring the implementation of CAA – on the LGA website

Between 26 October and 4 December 2009, the LGA surveyed all the CAA leads for English councils. Approximately half of those surveyed responded.

More than two-thirds (68 per cent) of respondents reported that they had undertaken, or planned to undertake, a locality self assessment. Just under half of these (44 per cent) had used or planned to use LG Improvement and Development’s ‘Locality Self Evaluation: A toolkit for partnerships’. More than three-quarters of these found the toolkit ‘useful’ or ‘very useful’.

Developing self evaluation

In 2008, the IDeA and LGA worked closely with 14 LSPs to develop a new approach to locality self evaluation. Each undertook a locality self evaluation for their area. Over two phases of trialling, 14 councils tested and helped to develop the final approach. There was also consultation with the joint inspectorates, regional improvement and efficiency partnerships (RIEPs) and government departments. The joint inspectorates’ proposal on CAA for consultation, issued in summer 2008, noted that:

“Councils and their partners, and their representative bodies, are developing approaches to self evaluation. While we are not making it a requirement of CAA, we do expect that each area will wish to complete an annual self evaluation. We will take full account of it and any service level self evaluation. We do not intend to repeat the work carried out already by the council or its partners. We will expect that any self evaluation is based on verifiable evidence. The more robust the self evaluation the more reliance we will be able to place on it.

"CAA will draw as far as possible on the information used by the council and its partners to manage performance and deliver improvements set out in the local area agreement (LAA) and Sustainable Community strategies (SCSs). This approach will minimise the administrative burden imposed by CAA and will make optimum use of self evaluation.”

Within the context of CAA, locality self evaluation moves away from the artificially scientific 'tick box' approach to assessing past performance. It offers one that is based on a locality’s own assessment of its performance, ambition and the risks to delivering on its objectives. Locality self evaluation aims to support the development of an informed view of how an area is doing in its own terms and against its own ambitions and targets. It also addresses how progress will be sustained in the future, balancing risks with available resources. In addition, it recognises the role of local political leadership and politically-led dialogue with citizens and communities.

On this basis, the main purpose of the locality self evaluation is to facilitate a shared assessment of:

• local needs and the translation of these into local priorities
• the extent of improvements and outcomes achieved
• what gaps need to be addressed and future improvement planning.

It allows the partnership to take stock and take action where necessary to ensure it is on course to achieving outcomes for local citizens. It will also provide a framework for external challenge by inspectorates to assess the risks to delivery.

"Spotting problems before they get onto the inspectors' radar and ensuring that you have robust plans in place to deal with them are two of the many benefits of self-evaluation." (Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council)

We would like to thank the local strategic partnerships in the following areas for their support in testing and developing the self evaluation guidance:

• Barking and Dagenham
• Buckinghamshire
• Enfield
• Hambleton
• Malvern Hills
• Richmond upon Thames
• Rotherham
• Salford
• St Helens
• Stockport
• Suffolk
• Sunderland
• Trafford
• Wirral