Oxfordshire County Council's Corporate Assessment and Joint Area Review
In December 2007, the Audit Commission will assess Oxfordshire County Council to look at what the council along with its partners is trying achieve, its capacity to do this and its achievements.
Over a period of two weeks, the inspectors will assess the authority against the Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) that underpin the following questions:
- What is the council, together with its partners, trying to achieve?
- What is the capacity of the council, including its work with partners, to deliver what it is trying to achieve?
- What has been achieved?
The on-site activity includes interviews with senior councillors and managers of the council as well as the council’s partners. Workshops will be held with frontline staff and partners.
The Corporate Assessment will be informed by a self-assessment that must be submitted by the authority by mid-October 2007. The self-assessment will consider progress since the previous Corporate Assessment (reported April 2005) and is in two sections:
- Context and summary: this part should ‘demonstrate how well you understand your local area and communities and how this underpins the choices and approach you are adopting in defining and delivering your local priorities within the wider, national agenda’. The summary should provide clear statements on community leadership, political and managerial leadership, user focus and diversity and value for money.
- Corporate assessment: this part addresses the KLOEs to identify strong performance and areas for improvement. We will need to score each of the five themes. This part of the self-assessment should show ‘how your understanding of your locality, as demonstrated in the context section, is translated into ambitions and priorities for the community, and how the capacity and performance management of the council is being applied to deliver improved outcomes for local people and places’.
Please note that South Oxfordshire District Council will be undergoing a Corporate Assessment in June 2007 covering the same headline questions as the county council.
At the same time, Ofsted will lead on a Joint Area Review (JAR) of Children’s Services in Oxfordshire. The JAR outcomes will influence the overall Corporate Assessment and the work on the Annual Performance Assessment of Children’s Services will help shape the county council's self-assessment. The JAR will observe frontline services and consider the service from the point of view of a child or young person.
As noted above, evidence on how the county council and partners’ work together to understand Oxfordshire, identify ambitions, prioritise actions and resources and deliver planned outcomes will be collated for the self-assessment. However, the on-site activity for the Corporate Assessment and Joint Area Review will test our argument by interviewing members of key partners and inviting partnership representatives to be part of workshops to discuss the key questions and KLOEs.
To help prepare for the Corporate Assessment and Joint Area Review, the county council intends to invite IdeA to run a corporate Peer review in June/July 2007. The review assesses the council against an ‘ideal authority’ benchmark which will serve as a ‘dry run’ for the December assessment. The review requires a self-assessment to be prepared, key supporting evidence to be provided and on-site interviews and workshops with elected members, staff and partners.
Key dates
- Possible IdeA review: June/July 2007
- South Oxfordshire DC Corporate Assessment: w/c 18 June 2007
- Oxfordshire County Council's self-assessment submission: mid-October 2007
- Oxfordshire County Council Corporate Assessment/Joint Area Review: w/c 3 December 2007 and 11 December 2007.
