A new assessment of the performance of Birmingham City Council has been published by the Audit Commission. In the wonderful world of three letter acronyms (TLAs) the CAA (Comprehensive Area Assessement) replaces the CPA (Comprehensive Performance Assessment).

Enough of jargon – what does the CAA say about how things are going in Birmingham? Well lots of things are seen as going well. The Council were praised in the organisational assessment 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 
·     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 the Council has work to do to improve some service areas including:

·     Health inequalities
·     Child poverty in certain areas of the city
·     Work to tackle unemployment
·     Children’s social care

This means that the Council’s overall CAA assessment is that it performs adequately.

There was good news for Birmingham with the award of two green flags for “exceptional performance or outstanding improvement in a specific area of work which others could learn from”. By contrast there was one red flag, which signals the Audit Commission has “significant concerns about results and future prospects that are not being tackled adequately”.

Birmingham’s red flag was given on the issue of ‘returning home after a stay in hospital’. One green flag was given for tackling climate change and reducing CO2 emissions. The other was awarded for working in partnership to meet housing need.

There has to be a health warning with external assessments these days – following clear failures by inspectors to pick up major failings in hospitals, not to mention some high profile failures by Ofsted to provide adequate warnings in the area of child care. However this overall assessment feels about right. Lots of things are going well, but in such a big organisation its not surprising that there are some areas that need improvement.

The full CAA assessment is available via this link.