Comprehensive Area Agreement
Today plans are announced for a radical shake-up of the way public services in England – including children’s services, health, social care, waste and recycling, fire and the police – are inspected and reported on. Now, the people who foot the bills will be given the means to examine their local services in close-up, all together in one place.
From 1st April six independent inspectorates – the Audit Commission, Ofsted, the new Care Quality Commission and HM Inspectorates of Probation, Prisons and Constabulary – will be working to gather information and make joint assessments about public services in every area of England. These will be published together on a new website to be launched by the end of the year. It will describe how the health, wealth, well-being and safety of people in every area in the country is developing, highlighting particular successes, and flagging up where services are failing to deliver.
Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) will reflect the new era of public service partnership working, and launches against a backdrop of recession, in which councils and their partners – which includes the Voluntary, Community and Faith sectors – have a newly-defined role to help their local economies recover from the effects of the downturn.
From CAA’s single dedicated website, and in other easy-access formats, this new reporting system will provide an annual snap-shot of local partnerships and whether, for example, they are improving job prospects, protecting the vulnerable, increasing life expectancy, reducing crime, making learning and training accessible, tackling transport or waste problems, promoting sustainability, and working together effectively to deliver local people’s priorities.
Although there will still be detailed assessments of the many organisations providing services in each area, with links to reports on the six inspectorates’ own websites, the real innovation will be the new joint inspectorate ‘area assessment’ focusing on outcomes provided in partnership – subjects local people have said they feel most passionate about, which may include reducing youth offending, action on drugs and alcohol, environmental issues, reducing carbon footprint, regenerating deprived areas, tackling obesity or the availability of affordable housing.
