Comprehensive performance assessment in English local government

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide, at a particularly significant point in its short history, an overview of a unique system of performance management to which all principal local authorities in England have been subject for the past three years. Design/methodology/approach – Comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) is the controversial centrepiece of a system of performance measurement and improvement management that has involved the external classification of each individual local authority as Excellent, Good, Fair, Weak or Poor. It is a system that, as comparative data on the scale of local government demonstrate, could only be attempted in the UK. The article is written as a non‐technical and evaluative narrative of the introduction, early operation and impact of this system, concluding with the changes in methodology introduced to counter the phenomenon of too many of the nation's local authorities becoming officially too good for the existing measurement framework. Findings – Key points that the article brings out concern the exceptional circumstances of UK local government that make such a performance management system even contemplatable, the improvement and recovery part of the regime, and the inherent implications of a system geared to providing regular statistical evidence of continuous performance improvement. Originality/value – The originality lies in the CPA system itself, aspects of which at least will be of interest both to specialists in performance measurement and management and to those with an interest in decentralized government and intergovernmental relations.