Comprehensive Area Assessment, or CAA, is a new way of assessing local public services in England. CAA is very different from the CPA which it replaces. It examines how well councils are working together with other public bodies to meet the needs of the people they serve. It's a joint assessment made by a group of six independent watchdogs. It provides an Area Assessment and Organisational Assessments.

The CAA Organisational Assessment reported on December 2009 that Leicestershire County Council is “performing excellently” and provides good value for money. The Council has received a top rating from the Audit Commission’s new inspection system – making it one of the best County Councils in the country. Only 10 Single tier/ County Councils out of 150 received a rating of ‘performing excellently’, of which LCC was one of them.

It is the sixth year running that the Council has been rated as a top performing authority, as it had a maximum rating of four stars from the previous inspection system.

The Area Assessment sets out how well local public services are tackling the major issues in Leicestershire. It says how well they are delivering better results for local people and how likely these are to improve in future. The Area Assessment for Leicestershire achieved a Green flag, this is used by the inspectorates to highlight where others can learn from outstanding achievements or improvements or an innovation that has very promising prospects of success.

Red Flags are also used to highlight where inspectorates have significant concerns about results and future prospects that are not being tackled adequately. Leicestershire did not have any red flags in this assessment.

Assessments are available to download on the website.  

The CAA sets out how CAA will be delivered.

Ofsted is charged with providing an Annual Performance rating for Children’s services within each local authority.  In December 2009 children’s services in Leicestershire County Council was rated as ‘performs well’.  This rating contributes significantly to the  council’s CAA Organisational Assessment.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has taken over from the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) this year (2009). Therefore, this is the first year the CQC have published the ratings and that the judgements have not been summarised as a star rating.  During December 2009 Adult Social care in Leicestershire County Council was rated as ‘performing well’ overall with performance on three of the seven outcomes reported as excellent.

National independent assessments show that the County Council is a top performing council. In 2008 we have achieved:

The scores are a result of the many ways we are doing more for the people of Leicestershire

The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) is a judgement by the Audit Commission of the Council's performance across all its services. It assesses the quality of current services and the likelihood of success in improving services in the future. The judgement will be used as the basis of action planning to improve local services.

The County Council, which spends more than £640 million each year delivering a wide range of services to 620,000 people, was given the highest possible classification by the Audit Commission. The ‘4 Star’ rating also recognises the quality of the County Council’s management and leadership.

The Audit commission summaries are:

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The Council has responded well to the issues raised in the joint area review and the APA of 2007 with improvements evident in most areas including;

Joint Area Review (JAR), which examines services for children and young people provided by the County Council, police, NHS and voluntary sector, says:

• Management of services is “outstanding”

• Capacity to improve is “outstanding”

• Safeguarding of children is “good”

• Services for looked-after children are “good”

• Services for children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities are “good”

The report says that good outcomes are achieved, despite comparatively low levels of funding – only two other county councils spent less per head on services in 2006.