Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA)

In 2009 North Norfolk District Council took part in the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) process for Norfolk. This 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.

The assessment was positive for Norfolk as a whole and for North Norfolk District Council as the assessment concluded that North Norfolk District Council performs adequately overall scoring 3 out of 4 for Use of Resources and 2 out of 4 for managing performance.

Some specific examples of achievements include:

• Winning the top trophy in the 2009 Clean Britain Awards for keeping our towns and parishes free of litter and rubbish.
• Retaining a Green Flag Award at Holt Country Park and 4 Blue Flag awards at our resort beaches
• Securing £3m investment in coastal management
• Reducing further the amount of time it takes to process benefit claims
• Allocating 180 disabled facilities grants
• Exceeding all our targets to assist people into work, provide unemployed people with advice and guidance, support new business start-ups and assist businesses to retain jobs or increase employment
• Delivering four new play facilities and commissioning a mobile youth project for four locations across the district
• Dealing effectively with ant-social behaviour
• Achieving efficiency savings
• Increasing to 102 the number of quality assured guest accommodation providers through successful lobbying
• Recycling over 47% of household waste while keeping costs low
• Increasing by nearly 60% the number of trade waste customers who recycle

...and many more.

But we are not complacent. The assessment acknowledged good delivery in seven of our priority areas but highlighted two priority areas in particular where we need to improve, enabling more affordable housing and reducing staff absences due to sickness. We are working hard to achieve those improvements.

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 first results for Norfolk are now available to download:

• NNDC CAA Summary
• NNDC CAA

Details of the archived Annual Audit and Inspection can be found here.