Area Profiles is a pioneering Audit Commission project designed to develop tools to produce a wide ranging picture and evaluation of the quality of life and services in a local area. It is designed to help better decisions to be made locally and to support local accountability.
The Area Profiles website brings together for the first time in one place:
Area information
There are around 300 items of contextual and performance information for every council area in England, such as employment levels and recycling levels. This is taken from a range of sources on the quality of life and local services, including the local Quality of Life indicators, recently launched by the Audit Commission, Department for Communities and Local Government and Department of the Environment, food and Rural Affairs. Local services need to make no extra data submissions to benefit from this database.
Inspection scores
The site contains the assessments and judgements of local public services made by independent inspectorates, including scores from the Audit Commission, Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and the Commission for Social Care Inspection.
Residents' views
The views of local citizens and of service users on the quality of life and local services, from best value performance surveys and a series of healthcare patient surveys, form an important perspective from local people on the quality of public services.
The information allows comparisons to be made between different local areas. To support local accountability and decision making, data can be downloaded and printed off for local use. All the information and data is provided by the Audit Commission: local services do not have to submit any additional data.
The Area Profiles site, which can be accessed through the Audit Commission website, will make life easier for all those local public service professionals (particularly those in councils and local strategic partnerships) who need information to help plan and monitor the effectiveness of their services. It will be useful for all those involved in developing local area agreements (LAAs). Local strategic partnerships will be able to compare their performance on a range of issues against similar areas anywhere else in the country.
The site has already been subject to rigorous testing by local pilot areas and national data agencies. Over the coming months, in response to user feedback, the Commission plans to add more data and assessments to the website, such as probation service inspection judgements. It will also improve the way the site works, making local comparisons much easier. The website will become an indispensable source of useful information on local services and areas.
Peter Wilkinson, Managing Director for Strategy and Resources at the Audit Commission, said:
"Area profiles are an invaluable tool for those driving continual improvement in public services. They bring contextual and performance information together in one place, spanning the range of public bodies that deliver services locally, and allowing people to compare performance. As services for users are improved, they will increasingly be delivered on an area basis, and the Area Profiles website will become ever more valuable over time."
