The Joint Area Review (JAR) in Leicester was carried out at the same time as the Audit Commission’s Corporate Assessment (CA) of the City Council.
The CA and the JAR focussed on similar and contrasting aspects of services provided for local people:
As part of its judgement on a council’s achievement, corporate assessment reports on the contribution of the council to the quality of outcomes for children and young people. The joint area review provides the judgements for this aspect of the assessment.
An annual performance assessment (APA) is also conducted each year in every council and where a joint area review takes place at or around the same time of year as the annual performance assessment, the latter will be integrated into the joint area review process to avoid duplication.
APA focuses on the contribution that a council’s services have made in the previous twelve months towards improving outcomes for children and young people.
It analyses a wide range of published evidence, including data, indicators, the council’s Children and Young People’s Plan, any reviews of this plan and other reference or supporting information. Unlike the joint area review, there is no on-site investigative fieldwork carried out for annual performance assessment, although inspectors meet with the council’s senior managers to discuss any issues that have arisen during the analysis of information. Leciester's APA took place in early October and the result will be published soon.
The overall effectiveness of a council’s children’s services grade provides the rating for the children and young people’s block in the Audit Commission's Annual Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). The CPA is closely linked with the CA has also been developed by the Audit Commission for single tier and county councils, district councils and fire and rescue authorities. The frameworks pull together a range of information to reach an overall judgement on a council's or fire and rescue authority's performance.
The frameworks have four common components:
For single tier and county councils, the first three components are combined using rules designed to ensure that minimum standards are being met across the board, to generate one of five star categories (4 - 0 stars).
Currently Leicester has 3 stars, which means it is performing and improving well. For more information of CPA star scoring, see the Audit Commission's website
www.audit-commission.gov.uk/cpa.
The joint area review is also aligned with the inspection of youth offending teams undertaken by HMI of Probation. We will aim to add more information on the process and the progress of the inspection of Leicester's Youth Offending Service here as soon as we have it.
An
enhanced youth inspection is also carried out at the same time as a joint area review if a local authority’s youth service has not been inspected since 2005. As Leicester City Council's Youth Service has already been inspected this will not be part of Joint Area Review in January.
