In a nutshell, CPA is about having an external assessment of our council to tell us how well we are doing and whether we have the capacity to improve.  CPA is an annual assessment administered by the Audit Commission (AC) with the results usually announced in February each year.

What does CPA look at?

CPA looks at how well a council's key services perform and how the council uses its resources.  It also considers how well the council is run, via the completion of a Corporate Assessment of a council's ability.

When was CPA introduced?

The CPA process was introduced by the Government in 2001 as a way of supporting councils to deliver improvements in services provided to local people and communities.  The process was amended in 2005 as the AC introduced the more demanding 'CPA - The Harder Test'.

How are Judgements Made?

The AC considers existing external inspections and assessments including the Annual Audit and Inspection letter, and collects other relevant performance information to make an overall judgement of the performance of each council in England. 

The outcome of the CPA process is the classification of a council into one of five categories, which were renamed in 2005.  The new categories range from 4 stars (indicating the highest rating) to 0 stars (the lowest).  Prior to 2005, councils were assessed as being excellent, good, fair, weak or poor.

The new scoring system also gives an assessment of where a council's performance is heading.  Each council is graded on their Direction of Travel (improvement) as either:

• Improving strongly;
• Improving well;
• Improving adequately;
• Not improving adequately.

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