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The Comprehensive Area Assessment has finally been unveiled. And citizen engagement lies at the heart of it, says Davy Jones. Is citizen engagement just a passing trend? It definitely seems to be flavour of the month. It appears everywhere in government documents. Some see this as a ‘New Labour' fad – but this would be a mistake. The underlying drivers go much deeper. Contrary to the claim in the Conservative Green Paper on Local Government , this is not just down to New Labour – successive governments are responsible for us having the West's most centralised system of local services. But the Internet has greatly expanded the range of information and choice available. Citizens and service-users now expect a voice and choice – even if they do not always use it. And that's why all the main parties are also now signed up to greater direct accountability of local services to citizens and services users rather than to the Government But there is a long way to go. The recent census of councillors revealed that less than 40% of councillors felt their council was fully committed to enabling people and communities to have an influence locally through active programmes of engagement. So where does CAA fit in? The new duty to inform, consult and involve comes into force for councils and fire and rescue authorities next month. Health bodies face similar duties, and it could be extended to police and probation services too . Guidance refers to its relevance for ‘routine functions' and ‘significant one-off decisions' – that just about covers everything. The new duty is expected to ‘embed a culture of engagement and empowerment' – a seismic shift comparable to those already achieved around performance management and partnership working. It is clear that CAA will be the key driver to embed this new culture. Not that there will be a specific CAA ‘score' on implementing the duty to involve – there won't be. But the first question – ‘How well do local priorities express community needs and aspirations?' – will be key to answering the third and most crucial question – ‘What are the prospects for future improvement?' Why? As the inspectorates explain: ‘If local needs are not understood well enough, it is unlikely that the right improvement will occur in future.' They go on to outline what CAA will assess in this area: how well councils and their partners know and engage with their communities, especially the most vulnerable and marginalised the extent to which priority outcomes have been defined, and their delivery assessed with community involvement the effectiveness of partners' co-ordination of their engagement and communication. Most local authorities are a long way from being able to answer all those questions positively. But is this enough? Last April, the Audit Commission published research into the public's views on the proposed CAA approach, but it doesn't seem to have had much impact. The public expressed reservations about whether inspectors were really able to assess what local services were like – many preferred to use ‘word of mouth' experiences from friends and neighbours. Recent child protection failures will have reinforced this view. What is not clear from the published CAA framework is where any genuinely-independent evidence of citizen and service-user engagement will come from, especially relating to those whose voices are traditionally missed, as the inspectorates are understandably reluctant to initiate their own local surveys. And do the CAA inspectors have the right skills to be able to assess partners' own and any independent evidence of citizen engagement? There is much in the CAA framework about using the Web to communicate the results of CAA, but what about the 51% of those earning £10,000 a year, or less, or the 71% of those aged over 65 who have never used the Internet ? CAA will undoubtedly play a big part in driving the citizen engagement agenda, but I can't help but wonder whether the inspectorates haven't missed a trick here. There are lay tenant assessors in housing inspections, and patients involved in healthcare assessments, so why is there no proposal for citizen assessors in the CAA process? Maybe it's not too late. Why don't the inspectorates commit to working with regional empowerment partnerships, Consumer Focus and others to integrate citizens more directly into CAA? Davy Jones is a freelance consultant

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WHITEHALL

Will the CAA make the connection

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