How Birmingham City Council is performing
9th December 2009
In a recent letter to Birmingham City Council staff, Stephen Hughes the Chief Exec. outlined the findings of the latest CAA (Corporate Area Assessment)review. He started off by thanking staff for their hard work which resulted in a number of services being praised for their good work.The CAA has replaced the CPA (Comprehensive Performance Assessment) and under the new inspection BCC are now judged in two ways – providing better results and outcomes for citizens, and how the council is performing as an organisation.
BCC were praised for..
- Increasing the number of adult social care clients receiving self-directed support
- Improving educational attainment in line with the national picture and other similar areas
- More consumers now feeling confident when buying goods or services in the city
- Locally-based street cleansing teams exceeding Birmingham’s litter targets
- More affordable homes being built than originally planned – a significant achievement given the economic downturn
- The Council Plan clearly setting out the authority’s strategic direction
- Good use of natural resources
- The ambitious Business Transformation programme improving services and making savings
- A strong focus on tackling under performance
But we have work to do to improve some areas of our services including:
- Health inequalities
- Child poverty in certain areas of the city
- Work to tackle unemployment
- Children’s social care
This means that BCC‘s overall CAA assessment was that we perform adequately.
There was good news in the area assessment which awards green flags for exceptional performance or outstanding improvement in a specific area of work which others could learn from. And red flags which signal the Audit Commission has “significant concerns about results and future prospects that are not being tackled adequately”.
Birmingham received one red flag, on the issue of ‘returning home after a stay in hospital’, but two green flags
The outcome has resulted in a reasonable assessment with some notable highlights. Visit the BCC newsroom for more info.
