External Assessment and Audit of the Council

The Government has an assessment regime for judging the performance of local councils. Currently it is called Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). On behalf of central Government, the Audit Commission assesses councils to check:

• what they are trying to achieve;
• how they are setting about delivering their priorities;
• what they have achieved/not achieved to date; and
• what they have learnt from their experiences.

Following the inspection, councils are judged as either 'excellent, good, fair, weak or poor'.

Our last inspection was in 2004 and the Audit Commission rated us as "Good", saying:

'Tendring is a good council with improving services. It is ambitious and has more recently invested and made robust plans to deliver better services and improve the quality of life for the people of Tendring'

View the full report or view a summary of highlights from the report.

Soon the assessment regime will change from CPA to Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA). In future the Audit Commission will look at the priorities, improvements and successes for the area as a whole, not just at how the Council is performing. More information will be published here when it is available.

Annual Audit and Inspection Letter

The Annual Audit and Inspection Letter is produced at the end of each financial year by the Audit Commission to provide an "end of term report" for the Council on all the Audits that have been carried out on the Council over the year. It is a letter direct from the Auditors to Members of the Council but is also made available as a public document. The latest letter can be viewed by clicking on the link below.


Annual Audit and Inspection Letter Dated March 2008 (pdf document)

Annual Audit & Inspection Letter March 2007 (pdf document)

The Use of Resources assessment evaluates how well the Council has managed and used its financial resources, and this can be viewed below.

Use of Resources Auditor Judgement 2007 (pdf document)

Auditor's Report on the Best Value Performance Plan

Each year up until 2007/08, the Council produced a Best Value Performance Plan to tell residents what we had achieved and how we performed in the previous year. The Plan also set out how we planned to improve and set targets for how we intended to perform in the future.

Following publication of the Best Value Performance Plan, the Council's auditors carried out an audit of the Plan to make sure the Council has met its legal duty to continuously improve in an economic, efficient and effective way.

The auditor's reports can be viewed by clicking on the links below.

Auditor's Report on Tendring District Council Best Value Performance Plan for 2006-07

Auditor's Report on Tendring District Council Best Value Performance Plan for 2005-06

Further information:

• We also produce an annual Statement of Accounts to show that we are managing our finances properly. More information can be found on the Finance webpages.
• Our Code of Corporate Governance shows that we manage our processes and relationships with others properly. Find out more about Corporate Governance here.

Some of the above links will open adobe acrobat pdf documents. You will need the free adobe acrobat reader software to open the documents.

Back to the main Annual Plan page.