Council and democracy

About the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA)

Update: July 2007

Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) measures how well councils are delivering services for local people and communities and their direction of travel. It looks at performance from a range of perspectives and combines a set of judgements to provide both a simply understood rating and a more complete picture of where to target activities to secure improvement.

The CPA framework currently comprises the following elements:

• Periodic Corporate Assessment - HCCs latest Corporate Assessment was undertaken in May 2007
• Annual Use of Resources Assessment
• Annual Service Assessments for Children and Young People, Adult Social Care, Environment and Culture
• Annual Direction of Travel Statement
• Performance Assessment for the Fire & Rescue Service comprising a scored Direction of Travel Assessment, a Use of Resources Assessment and a scored Service Assessment

These elements combine to generate a star rating of between 0 and 4 stars with an accompanying Direction of Travel.

In 2006 the Audit Commission awarded Hertfordshire a four star rating for overall performance and judged it to be 'improving well'.


Further information on the CPA can be found on the Audit Commission website, which is linked from this page.