For the latest Community Care & Housing performance statistics, please follow the ‘CC&H Performance Book’ link in the Other Websites section on the right of this page.
Performance indicators
Like other departments of the council, community care and housing collates and analyses data on its performance continuously and presents it in the form of a series of regular reports for a variety of audiences.
Central Government requires us to set targets for improving performance, monitor progress and report the results back to government agencies, councillors, managers and local people. The government specifies the performance indicators to be measured and sets performance standards and targets for many of our services.
The Single Set of 198 National Indicators (the National indicator set – NIS) was announced by the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) in October 2007, following the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review 2007.
Effective from 1 April 2008, the NIS is the only set of indicators on which central government performance manages local government. It covers services delivered by local authorities alone and in partnership with other organisations like health services and the police.
The NIS replaces all other existing sets of indicators including the Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPIs) and the Performance Assessment Framework (PAF).
A number of our community care indicators are included in the annual statistical collection known as the RAP return (referrals, assessments and packages of care) and we have retained some additional ones which together with RAP make up the performance assessment framework (PAF), which we now use as local performance measures.
The majority of our housing indicators are included in the HSSA (housing strategy statistical appendix) and P1E returns. The quarterly P1E forms collect data from English local housing authorities on the discharge of their responsibilities under the homelessness legislation. Many of our performance indicators are audited annually for accuracy and completeness by the Audit Commission.
We report on our performance each quarter.
Self assessment surveys
Councils complete a self assessment survey (SAS) of their community care functions in the spring of each year and submit it to the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The SAS contains detailed statements about how the council intends to provide its social services for adults and older people for the coming year and forms a significant part of the evidence used in the annual rating of adult social services in the autumn. CQC uses what the council has said in the SAS to check that we are doing what we have said we will and to check how well the council is improving, year on year. The SAS, along with the results of our annual performance indicators and any service inspections are used by CQC to make an annual judgement on our performance. Previously this resulted in a ‘Star’ rating, but since 2008/9 the results instead feed into the overall Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) which is determined by the Audit Commission).