Issue - meetings

To receive and consider report 24/08 of the Strategic Director and Chief Finance Officer. 

Introduction and Report Summary  

The national performance inspection regime for local government is changing.  Previously the Council was inspected in accordance with the 'Comprehensive Performance Assessment' (CPA) rules.  Under that regime the Council was formally assessed as being 'Fair' in 2004, which is the middle of five categories (Poor, Weak, Fair, Good and Excellent.) 

In addition to the full CPA inspection in 2004, the Council has been annually inspected against a Use of Resources checklist, and in 2007 it's usual '2' score (adequate) on a scale of 1 - 4, improved to '3 (satisfactory).

The CPA regime is being phased out to be replaced with the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) regime, which will consider the performance of all Oxfordshire councils together.  The precise details are still being formulated by the Government and it is not yet possible to assess whether the duties and obligations arising from the new regime will be any less onerous than the CPA regime.

In the meantime, there are two performance obligations which will continue to fall on individual councils including the Vale.  These will be inspected and so will affect the Council's perceived performance.  The Council could choose to put more or less effort into them according to its aspirations.  This report requests direction from the Executive.

The Contact Officer for this report is Steve Bishop, Strategic Director & Chief Finance Officer (01235 540332).  Email:  steve.bishop@whitehorsedc.gov.uk

Recommendations

The Executive is requested to agree that:

Either:

(a)   No additional effort to that already provided for in service plans is expended by officers on achieving the statutory obligations in respect of the Use of Resources assessment and the Annual Governance Statement;

Or,

(b)   The officers expend as much effort as is required to retain the '3' score in Use of Resources and obtain a complementary inspection opinion on the Annual Governance Statement, acknowledging that specific service plan commitments will need to be forsaken in order to free up the necessary staff resource.

(Time: 3.10pm to 3.15pm)

The Executive received and considered report 24/08 of the Strategic Director and Chief Finance Officer.  This explained that the national performance inspection regime for local government was changing. 

Previously individual Councils were inspected in accordance with the 'Comprehensive Performance Assessment' rules.  These were being replaced with the Comprehensive Area Assessment regime, which would consider the performance of all Oxfordshire councils together.  The precise details were still being formulated by the Government and it was not yet possible to assess whether the duties and obligations arising from the new regime would be any less onerous than the old one. 

In the meantime, there were two performance obligations which would continue to fall on individual councils: the Use of Resources assessment and the Annual Governance Statement.  These would be inspected and would affect the Council's perceived performance.  The Council could choose to put more or less effort into them according to its aspirations.  This report requested the Executive’s direction. 

In the light of forthcoming guidance on the new Comprehensive Area Assessment regime, Members considered that they should keep within existing resources already provided for in Service Plans to achieve statutory obligations for future performance inspections.  In doing so, the Executive made a conscious decision not to introduce additional resources to achieve a higher assessment score.  However, the Executive considered it important to still achieve as high a score as possible within existing resources and asked that this message was conveyed to staff.  The Executive also stressed the importance of retaining resources to deliver front line services. 

RESOLVED

that no additional effort to that already provided for in service plans is expended by officers on achieving the statutory obligations in respect of the Use of Resources assessment and the Annual Governance Statement.