THE COUNCIL'S PRESS RELEASE ON THE C.P.A.
HORSHAM COUNCIL ‘EXCELLENT’ – IT’S OFFICIAL!
HORSHAM District Council is an ‘excellent authority’ – that’s the official feedback from an independent and national review of all councils.
Horsham District Council has worked hard to be a high performing council, and worked in partnership with all parts of the community to provide high quality services in a high quality environment.
How rewarding then, to now receive confirmation this week from the Audit Commission, that the outcome of the recent Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) of Horsham District Council will result in it being categorised as an ‘excellent’ council.
In their report the Audit Commission’s CPA Team describe the Council as “an excellent council, with clear ambitions and drive to maintain the current rate of improvement in the future.”
Commenting on the news, Cllr Mrs Elizabeth Kitchen, Leader of Horsham District Council, said:
“I am thrilled but not surprised that the Council has been identified as excellent by the Audit Commission. The assessment process was very rigorous, examining our corporate capacity, use of resources, approach to tackling benefit fraud, as well as our approach to the challenging issues for the provision of housing, and the delivery services in general. We recognise that we must not become complacent, we will strive to perform even better in future.
The description of Horsham as “excellent” is a huge compliment to the real partnership approach to achieving a better quality of life in the District. That partnership has included a sound working relationship between councillors and staff, and successfully embraced the voluntary and community sector organisations, private sector and public sector organisations and agencies that we work with”.
CPA is a new assessment framework introduced by Central Government last year, when county and unitary councils were inspected by Audit Commission Teams. The process provides a judgement for each council, identifying them as either poor, weak, fair, good or excellent. It also helps councils develop an improvement plan for the future delivery of services.
In the spring of 2003, Horsham together with the six other district and borough councils in West Sussex took part in a pilot exercise to help the Audit Commission test out the methodologies to be used before rolling out CPA to the remaining district and borough councils across the country.
On receiving the news Martin Pearson, Chief Executive of Horsham District Council, commented::
“As Chief Executive it has been a privilege to work for the community and work with committed high quality staff to make a real difference to local people’s lives. I know there is more work to be done, and we can always improve, but this accolade puts us very much at the forefront of the best examples of a local council working for its community.
The partnership working between councillors and officers is certainly the best I have experienced and is rightly commented upon by the Audit Commission CPA Team. I believe this independent recognition is a true reflection of the commitment by the Councillors and the Council’s employees to public service. For my part I must thank all my staff for their professionalism, care and dedication, but we can and must do even better in the future as we listen, plan and react to the dynamics of our changing community.”
A copy of the Audit Commission’s full report can be found on their website at www.audit-commission.gov.uk
Horsham District Council will now be using the report to develop an improvement plan for the future. Other background information regarding the CPA process and work that led up to it can be found on this site by using the navigational links to on the left side of this page or by telephoning Peter Dawes Executive Officer (Scrutiny & Service Reviews) on 01403 215406.
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CONTACT: Richard Morris, Communications Manager (Extension 5549)
Park House, North Street, Horsham, West Sussex RH12 1RL # (01403) 215100 Fax: (01403) 262985