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Camden LBC this week emerged from the Comprehensive Area Assessments as England's highest-rated area for public services – but delivered an immediate critique of the fledgling inspection regime. The London borough has topped The MJ's unofficial ‘league table' of localities, following the long-awaited publication of the first CAA results. Camden leader, Keith Moffitt, said the experience was bitter-sweet. In addition, Conservative shadow local government minister, Caroline Spelman, reiterated her party's plan to scrap CAAs. ‘I'm delighted that Camden has been rated as one of the best councils in the country,' Cllr Moffitt said. ‘But we do believe the publication of this year's results should spur a mature debate on the future of regulation and inspection. Our residents, rightly, expect us to focus on delivering services, not administrative overheads.' Other councils have also hit out at the burden caused by the new regime. Wandsworth and Hammersmith and Fulham LBCs issued a joint statement earlier this week, claiming they would limit the resources they put into inspections next year (see page 3). The Audit Commission, and five other public inspectorates, including Ofsted, judged the majority of England's councils and their partners to have provided broadly-positive services, including often-maligned children's services, over the past 12 months. Launched on the ‘One Place' website, the CAA assessments detail how successfully organisations – including councils, education and NHS bodies, police authorities and care providers – address their key challenges. Assessments for each locality include the Audit Commission's traditional review of councils' organisational performance – each authority is graded from one to four – as well as analysis of how other public bodies are working – often together – to tackle issues such as crime, anti-social behaviour, health and social care. A system of green and red ‘flags' is used to highlight areas of excellence or serious concern. The six inspectorates have avoided creating a league table of the best and worst performers. But five localities have emerged as providing what could broadly be described as ‘gold standard' services – the London boroughs of Camden, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, and the Corporation of London, as well as Kent CC. Each received a grade four rating for their council performance – described as ‘performing excellently' – and two green ‘flags' for other local services. If other key performance ratings are added to each councils' score – such as use of resources and managing performance – Camden emerges as, arguably, the strongest locality in England. Kent CC emerges as the strongest county, while Chorley BC and Sevenoaks DC lead England's districts. In contrast, the Doncaster area faces serious challenges which have already forced the local council to develop an emergency plan to improve its children and young people's services. Doncaster MBC was one of 12 authorities to score just one for organisational assessment – described as ‘performing poorly' – and received two red flags. Predictably, one was for children's services, described by inspectors as having ‘serious weaknesses' following the recent deaths of seven children. Howard Monk, assistant director of policy performance at Doncaster, said: ‘We're disappointed by the second red flag for housing for vulnerable people, but we have to take these assessments on the chin. The point is to improve… we have a plan in place to do that.' Of the 391 local authorities to receive organisational assessments, 364 (or 93%) performed ‘well' or ‘adequately'. Margaret Eaton, LGA chair, said: ‘The latest results make encouraging reading for the vast majority of councils and their partners, and where there are indications of problems, these need to be taken seriously.'

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WHITEHALL

Top performers shun the new CAA regime

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