The Audit Commission has been accused of tinkering with the CPA system, leading to public confusion. London Councils, which represent the 33 boroughs of London, claims planned changes to measures to assess councils' performance fail to take into account local issues and will cause confusion. The organisation's executive member for improvement Cllr Michael White said: ‘I cannot see the value in making wholesale changes to the CPA system when it is being replaced from 2009. ‘The proposals the Commission are putting forward put too much emphasis on judging a council's performance against national targets. ‘This will fail to take account of local issues, especially in London.' The CPA judges annually how well councils serve local communities. CPA is being replaced by Community Area Assessments from 2009, which will look at how all public services in an area work together. But in the meantime, the commission wants to judge council performance on housing, environmental and cultural services against national targets. London Councils claim matters, such as recycling, must take account of the difficulties faced by London boroughs due to the high proportion of flats and multi-occupancy homes in the capital. It believes regional targets should be used for tackling homelessness to reflect London's special circumstances. And it feels it is wrong to judge individual boroughs on the number of museums, libraries, theatres and concert halls they have in their area as the population is highly mobile and will travel across the capital to visit culture and entertainment venues.
