District
councils will achieve a single overall rating of excellent, good, fair, weak or
poor when they are judged under the Audit Commission’s comprehensive
performance assessment (CPA) regime.
The
commission has published its final framework for assessing England’s 238
districts, which follows the December 2002 CPA of the 150 largest councils.
Audit
Commission chairman, James Strachan, said: "The whole point of CPA is to
improve public services. After last year’s baseline assessment, the largest
councils in England are planning how they make their services better.
"We
have worked closely with district councils to produce another powerful tool for
improvement that meets their needs."
Councils
will be scored on 10 themes:
–
ambition
– prioritisation
– focus
– capacity
– performance management
– achievement on quality of service
– achievement of improvement
– investment
– learning and future plans
