Audit Commission publishes its report on learning from CPA

Comprehensive Performance Assessment - Learning from CPA for the Fire and Rescue Service in England 2005 draws on the findings of individual corporate assessments for the 47 FRAs that the Commission published last summer. All FRAs were rated as either 'excellent', 'good', 'fair', 'weak' or 'poor'.

Nearly half (47 per cent) of FRAs are categorised overall as good or excellent.

The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) reviews looked at the way the service works to make the community safer and prevent fires happening in the first place. As well as fire prevention and education, they looked at a wide range of areas including staff training, rates of sickness, team leadership and how well budgets are managed. However, they are not a measure of how well FRAs respond to emergencies or other incidents.

The Audit Commission says that future progress towards providing effective, efficient and community focused services that are fit for the 21^st century could be more quickly achieved by some FRAs.

It adds that local government could play its part by ensuring that councillors appointed to authorities have the necessary skills to provide strategic leadership. It also asks the government to note the patterns of performance that have emerged through the CPA process and consider exploring the findings further.

Audit Commission Chief Executive Steve Bundred said: 'Fire and rescue authorities are changing and they must increase the momentum of progress towards modernisation. We have identified obstacles to improvement, particularly in performance management and capacity. Fire authorities can accelerate the pace of change by addressing areas such as leadership, diversity and working conditions and practices.'

Overall, London and the six metropolitan FRAs perform best with 67 per cent categorised as good or excellent. The 24 combined FRAs also perform well with 50 per cent in the top two categories. The 16 county authorities, which tend to serve smaller communities and have fewer staff and smaller budgets, do less well with only a third of them rated as good or excellent.

In addition to the individual reports, the Audit Commission’s national study was informed by findings of a survey of chief fire officers (CFOs) and authority chairs. Nine out of ten CFOs said that Comprehensive Performance Assessment was a driver for change and a majority of CFOs and chairs would go through the process again, even if it was not compulsory.

As well as areas of improvement, the Audit Commission's report highlights what FRAs are doing well and identifies specific examples of good practice. To complement the report, the Commission is launching a web-based improvement tool which contains information on good practice and gives access to examples of the progress being made by other authorities.  This can be found at: www.audit-commission.gov.uk/cpa/fire/lffirecpa/