The Perils and Pitfalls of Performance Measurement: The CPA Regime for Local Authorities in England

From 2002 comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) has been used by the Audit Commission to scrutinize service delivery in English local authorities across six service blocks: benefits; social care; environment; libraries and leisure; use of resources; education and housing. The authors examined CPA in terms of how vulnerable it is to categorization errors and gaming, whether it is consistent with other government policies and how it deals with uncontrollable factors. CPA failed all of these tests.