... and it's official
29 June 2006, The Audit Commission confirmed our new
Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) score and we have been awarded
three stars out of a possible four, which confirms that we are
performing well. This is an improvement on our latest score (Fair or 2 stars) and a far cry from our 'weak' result in 2002.
CPA looks at what the council is doing well, and where things could be improved. It is made up of the Corporate Assessment (CA), together with the Joint Area Review (JAR), which looks into children's social services. Both inspections highlighted a number of improvements - please look at the bottom of this page for the full inspection reports.
The
Corporate Assessment report found that Milton Keynes Council has made strong progress in several areas:
- It is planning well for the new required growth of the city, in conjunction with partner organisations, and it continues to develop the city in line with existing plans.
- The council and its partners can show good outcomes in a number of areas - such as the improvement in health of the population in the most deprived areas of the city, and the schools building programme, which aims to address both the population growth of the area and achieve better educational results.
- The council has made good progress with its own robust priorities. It has found ways of improving its services and has begun to implement these.
- It has improved its financial standing and financial management.
- It works well with a strong local network of community and voluntary organisations
- The council, with its partners, has a strong vision of an environmentally sustainable city
- The council and its partners have successfully delivered several approaches to dealing with the impact of drugs
- Effective inter-agency arrangements are in place for monitoring racial tension and highlighting potential hot spots.
The
Joint Area Review (JAR) inspection of our children's services was also encouraging.
This has been strongly backed up by a separate inspection of the
youth service, which graded it 3 out of 4. The service was praised as good, and providing good value for money. It also recognised that young people achieve well, and take advantage of opportunities, as well as being responsible members of their community.
Please click on the following links to access the Audit Commission's full reports:
John Best, Milton Keynes Council Chief Executive said, "This is a brilliant result. It shows that we are improving strongly, despite the particular pressures of responding to a fast growing city. Working as a team we are able to make our commitment to improving services for the people of Milton Keynes a reality. It's especially impressive to have made such good progress as the tests have become much tougher now."
