Comprehensive Area Assessment

Comprehensive Area Assessment, or CAA, is a new way of assessing local public services in England. It examines how well councils are working together with other public bodies to meet the needs of the people they serve. It's a joint assessment made by a group of six independent watchdogs.


Assessments will be made publicly available every year and will provide an annual snapshot of quality of life in the area. The results will appear on a new Oneplace website which has been launched on Wednesday 9 December 2009.
CAA comprises of two parts:

  • The Area Assessment - how councils, police, fire, health and other services work together effectively to tackle priorities in an area.  It uses 'green flags' to highlight exceptional performance and innovation and 'red flags' for areas of concern.   For Stockton the Audit Commission has identified no red or green flags but has praised many areas of local services.
  • The Organisational Assessment - this looks at how well Stockton Council is performing and is made up of two judgments. Managing Performance and Use of Resources. These themes combine to provide an overall score and assessment of organisational effectiveness. For Managing Performance the Audit Commission rates Stockton as 3 out of 4 - Performing Well.  For Use of Resources it rates Stockton as 4 out of 4 performing excellently.  
  • OFSTED assessed our Children's Services as performing well.
  • The Care Quality commission assessed our Adult Social Care as performing well.

    Further details on the results for Stockton and access to the One Place Web site at www.direct.gov.uk/oneplace

Comprehensive Area Assessment