To report the Council’s 2008 Comprehensive Performance Assessment and Direction of Travel judgement published by the Audit Commission on 5 March.

The Chief Executive introduced the report to Cabinet on the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) and Direction of Travel assessment of the Council published by the Audit Commission on 5 March.  He advised Cabinet that the authority was improving well, compared to adequately the previous year, with the capacity to improve even further over the next year.  He added that there had been some positive movement across most of the priority areas.  The fall in the Culture score from 3* to 2* was largely a result of there having been fewer visits to libraries.

The Corporate Policy and Research Manager explained that as from the 1 April 2009 the CPA would be replaced by the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA), so that this was the last time the assessments would be in this form.  CAA would look more widely at what the Council and its partners were achieving together for the people of Herefordshire.  He added that overall the picture for the last year of CPA was one of improvement and referred Cabinet to the scores on page 10 of the report, where it was noted that although the score was 2* it was a far stronger 2* than before and probably not far from a 3*.  He highlighted that the use of resources score had returned to a 3 and the score for Benefits had moved to the highest score of 4.  He referred Cabinet to the Audit Commission’s explanation regarding the 2008 Direction of Travel on page 10 of the report, drawing particular attention to the importance of the further work in hand to achieve value for money across the Council and to the favourable comments on the effective remedial action that had been taken in response to the internal control issues that had been identified in ICT in 2007. 

Both Cabinet and Group Leaders praised officers for the hard work that had led to these improved assessments.  With reference to libraries the Cabinet Member Community Services stated that there was a strong user group working with the library service and that work was being carried out to generate more use of the service by young people, as well as substantial additional investment to improve library provision.  There was some discussion around the benefits service score. Although commendably high score, there was some concern that it was one of the easiest areas to slip back on the score, particularly with the potential increased pressure that could be put on the service in the current recession.  The Director of Resources appreciated the concerns raised but said that the service was already coping well with the additional demand of recent months and was well-placed to deal with additional demand in the future.  He added that this had been discussed with the Acting Cabinet Member Resources and the Leader to ensure that the maximum benefits were available for people and to target those most in need of help.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.