Comprehensive
Performance Assessment
Bexley - A Four Star Council in 2005
  Bexley's
latest CPA score
The Leader's view |
 "Doing
very well on the new tougher regime is recognition of the continuous improvement
that has been made by the Council since the first Comprehensive Performance Assessment
in 2002 and builds on the previous 3 years 'Excellent' rating. This
recognises not only the Council's work but also the effective partnership
working that has been successful in improving the quality of life in the borough.
"I am delighted that the Council also scored top
marks on Adult Services, Children's & Young People's Services
and Environmental Services which shows the high standards that have been achieved
across a range of services. Congratulations to everyone in contributing to achieving
such a great overall result."
Leader of the Council (May 2002 - 2006),
Councillor Chris Ball |
The Chief Executive's view |
 "Providing
a high standard of services to local people is important and I am very pleased
that this result has been achieved during a year in which the Council has also
delivered a wide range of key projects that will have an impact on the day-to-day
lives of our residents.
"There is increasing pressure to secure value for
money and greater efficiency and at the same time to deliver the quality services
that our residents expect. We don't get it right all of the time and there
are still areas where we can improve but this external viewpoint shows that overall
the Council is getting it right and as a result rated as one of the best authorities
in the Country. That is something that we are all very proud of achieving."
Chief Executive,
Nick Johnson OBE
|
Bexley Council has just been awarded top marks under the Government's new
Comprehensive Performance Assessment.
The new 'harder
test'  (pdf file) focussed
on the performance and delivery of a wider range of services than ever before
with greater importance attached to securing value for money for local taxpayers.
Overall the rating is based on five levels ranging from zero to four stars
and Bexley obtained the top four-star rating.
The framework brings together the views of various inspectorates with the
Audit Commission highlighting that very few authorities will score a 4 on an
individual service score, although Bexley managed this in three service areas.
The Council was one of only two authorities in England to get the top rating
on both Children's and Young People's Services and Social Care for Adults and
the only London borough to get the top rating for Environmental Services.
Follow the links below for:
Under the new regime services are scored from 1 to 4 where 4 is the best possible
score. Performance is not compared to just London but all authorities in England.
Corporate Performance Assessment has three main strands:
- Service Assessment
- Direction of Travel
- Corporate Assessment
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1. Service Assessment
There are seven service assessment areas:
The remainder of the information on this page provides further details on
each element of the CPA and links to additional reports.
Children and Young People's Services
This was the first year that Bexley has scored top marks in this particular
service area, which combines a self-assessment and performance on over 250 indicators
for social services and education services. Overall,
Bexley was one of only eleven authorities in England to be given the top rating
for this service area.
The Commission for Social Care Inspection and Ofsted acknowledged that Children's
and Young People's Services were high in the Council's priorities
and in line with the 'Every
Child Matters' agenda. The Inspectors found that the Council's
contribution to maintaining and improving outcomes for children and young people
in Bexley were among the best in the country, with only four Councils scoring
higher.
Their assessment reported strengths in all five defined outcomes, with services
delivering well above minimum requirements for users overall, particular highlights
are as follows:-
- Being healthy - a successful healthy schools programme and a high proportion
of looked after children receiving health checks.
- Staying safe - good joint working, high standards of targeted provision,
particularly in ensuring the well being of looked after children and those on
the child protection register.
- Enjoying and achieving - improvements in outcomes in schools were recognised,
together with an overall improvement in attendance rates.
- Making a positive contribution - successful engagement with children and
young people in a number of ways.
- Achieving economic well being - more students choosing to stay on and
positive outcomes for young people in sixth forms.
The assessment noted that many improvements had been achieved through partnership,
and the Council was working well with relevant parties to analyse need and set
appropriate policies and challenging targets. It also confirmed the Council's
plans for ensuring that further improvements in outcomes for Children and Young
People are achieved and sustained.
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Social Care for Adults
The Adult Services block scored top marks from the Commission for Social Care
for the fourth year running and Bexley was one of only twelve authorities in
England to be given the top rating for this service area. The Commission for
Social Care Inspection once again acknowledged the long standing and effective
joint working arrangements with partners, particularly the strengths of the local
Care Trust and the six partnerships, including several based on the use of Health
Act flexibilities/Section 31 Agreements. During the course of the year, the Independent
Living Centre managed by Inspire Community Trust was established to help reshape
provision for adults with physical and sensory impairments by the full involvement
of people with physical disabilities in planning and developing services. Substantial
progress was also made in modernising residential and day care services for older
people and people with learning disabilities through joint project management
with Kent Community Housing Trust (KCHT) and MCCH. Support was also extended
to Oxleas NHS Trust in its bid to become a Foundation Trust (reflecting the continued
sound performance of Bexley's integrated community mental health teams).
Building on this excellent foundation, further improvements in response to
the Government's national targets and priorities during the last 12 months
have included:
- Providing 95% of equipment for disabled people within 7 working days;
- Preventing and reducing delays in the discharge of patients from hospital
once their treatment had been completed;
- Managing costs effectively with unit costs of all adult social care services
remaining stable;
- Ensuring that all adults and older people received a statement of need;
- Enabling more choice through more adults and older people receiving direct
payments;
- Assessing more new 'older clients' with more receiving their
care packages in less than four weeks;
- Establishing the local safeguarding service for Bexley's most vulnerable
residents;
- Revising the Carer's Strategy to further address local priorities for
supporting carers and improve access to assessment and social services; and
- Reducing the number of people aged 18-64 that had to be admitted to residential/nursing
care.
These achievements have ensured that Bexley is well placed to respond to the
challenges of the imminent White Paper on Out of Hospital Care and the aim of
making health and social care services increasingly person centred, seamless
and fully supportive of choice, independence, well-being of vulnerable adults
and older people.
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 Use of Resources
This element of the assessment focussed on how the Council controls and manages
budgets and secures value for money. The result for Bexley was one of the most
consistent in London with all of the blocks on financial reporting, financial
management, financial standing, internal control and securing value for money
assessed as performing well. The assessment also looked at the costs of services
and how these compared to the rest of the country, the innovative use of funding
to finance key projects such as the school PFI development and the leisure centre
PPP, the arrangements for controlling council expenditure and managing the Council's
assets. Work on further clarifying our plans for joint working with partners
and 'whole life' costings are areas that were identified for improvement
and the Council will be addressing these in the next few months.
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Environmental Services
Bexley has regained its score of 4 for the Environment Services block as the
result of consistently good performance across all services. Overall, Bexley
was the only London borough to achieve a score of 4 and one of only seven authorities
(when compared to the 150 largest authorities in England) to be given the top
rating for this service area. Particularly high performance was sustained in
dealing with planning applications, road safety, recycling, environmental health
and trading standards. The result reflects the substantial improvement in planning
application performance compared to the position recorded in the benchmark Best
Value Review of 2001/02; as well as the benefit derived from the use of Planning
Delivery Grant resources. Bexley is the highest performing London Borough in
recycling and composting waste, and is well on course to meet the 2005/06 CPA
target of 30%. However achieving the Council's stretched PSA target of
37.5% presents a significant challenge, requiring an increase of 25% in the amount
of recycling over the previous year.
Opportunities generally to improve on performance are continually being sought,
one example being the condition of footways, where improvement needs are being
assessed and an action plan prepared.
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Housing Service
Housing has maintained its 3 star rating. Having transferred its housing
stock, many of the performance indicators making up the housing assessment do
not apply to Bexley. This leaves indicators that focus issues such as homelessness
and private sector housing. The Housing Options Service - launched in July
2005 - targets the prevention of homelessness and already has made a difference,
preventing 76 households from becoming homeless so far this year. This is through
a mixture of family reconciliation, other prevention measures and renting in
the private sector. Since April 2004, no households containing children or a
pregnant woman has had to remain in shared emergency accommodation for more than
6 weeks and performance in this area will improve over that reported in 2004/05.
Repeat homelessness is also very low in Bexley compared with other authorities
and it is hoped that the Council's empty property strategy will maintain
the long term empty private sector properties at a low level.
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 Culture
On cultural services the impact of the new leisure and library facilities
will not be seen until next year. None of the performance indicators were in
the lower quartile (the bottom 25%) but due to the comprehensive refurbishment
programme and the closures during the past 12 months not enough of the indicators
were in the top quartile to secure a score of 3.
In 2006 there will be a number of new cultural Performance Indicators in the
Culture Block. These will focus on the sports and physical activity service area.
The revised performance indicators are more closely linked to the Council's
key sport and leisure delivery objectives for which essential baseline data is
already being collected. It is widely anticipated that this will more properly
reflect the Council's ongoing investment both in capital infrastructure
and policy formulation/delivery. It is widely anticipated that the effect of
the recent opening of the refurbished leisure centre's at Crook Log and
Erith will result in higher satisfaction levels than have been reported in recent
years.
The Library Service was found to be providing a wide range of good quality
stock and most customers were able to find something 'fresh' on the
shelves. For those who cannot, Bexley is in the top 25% nationally for speed
of supply. As highlighted above visits have fluctuated during the year as libraries
have closed for refurbishment as part of the Library strategy. Those Libraries
that have been refurbished have had a significantly higher number of visitors
and new members, the high level of IT provision in libraries is also helping
to attract new users, both young and old.
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Benefits
The assessment covered claims administration (including counter-fraud activities),
security, customer contact and services and value for money. Following the Council's
self assessment and an analysis of performance the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate
concluded that the a good service was delivered, that there was a comprehensive
checking regime and performance had improved in a number of areas during the
past year. The service offered to claimants had also improved due to the development
of a Home visiting Service.
In particular the BFI noted many positive aspects within the service. These included
the improvement in new claims processing, the prompt action taken to obtain all
necessary information, prioritising changes of circumstances to minimise overpayments
and effective communication with landlords. Having a Housing Benefit and Council
Tax Benefit take-up policy that included provision to promote the take-up of
welfare benefits and target under-claiming sections of the community was also
highlighted along with the monitoring, reviewing and delivery of plans and targets
at senior management and operational levels.
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2. Direction of Travel
For the first time the Government Watchdog the Audit Commission also included
a statement on the direction that the Council was heading and Bexley was seen
to be 'Improving Well'. Although this is only the second highest
rating the highest rating of 'Strongly Improving' will mainly apply
to authorities where the current performance means there is more room for significant
improvement. In their 180 word summary the inspectors also highlighted the improvement
in our priority services, the number of schemes that were in place to improve
services to our diverse communities and that the Council has good capacity to
deliver its future plans. There were no significant weaknesses although some
of the scores don't fully reflect very recent improvements and there are
some service areas where further improvements could be made in the future.
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3. Corporate Assessment
The remaining element is the Corporate Assessment which is pivotal in determining
the overall star rating, this covers how well the Council is managed and organised
and is updated following an on site inspection. Bexley is due to have our next
corporate assessment between October 2006 and February 2007. In the meantime
the most recent corporate assessment counts and that was again the top mark of
four. The Commission has introduced the direction of travel element to give an
update between corporate assessments. As highlighted above the Council has been
assessed as 'Improving Well', which will hopefully provide us with
a firm foundation in preparing for the inspection next year, which will be combined
with a Joint Area Review of Children's and Young People's services.
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A Summary of the current scores is as
follows:
How well the Council is run
Bexley received an overall measurement of 4 out of 4 for
the way it is run. The score on each of the individual elements was as follows:
How do Bexley's Main Services Perform?
Bexley also received an overall measurement of 4 out of 4 for
the performance of core services. Individual service scores were as follows:-
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Improvement Planning
Although rated a 'four star' authority, Bexley aims to stay in top category
and is committed to continual improvement and offering residents good value for
money. The Council will be reviewing the comments raised as part of the CPS in
2005 and where these are a priority, developing an Improvement Plan which will
be included in the Performance Plan.
More information
Basic
analysis and summary results for single tier and county councils CPA 2005 (pdf file) |
