Agenda item

Consideration was given to a report presented by Anne Hawke, Performance and Improvement Officer, which outlined the proposed arrangements for monitoring, reporting and performance management of the new Corporate Plan priorities to the Self-Regulation Select Commission.

Due to reduced resources across the authority monitoring of the plan should not duplicate effort and should be as efficient and effective as possible.  Performance and Quality Officers have been working with managers and directors to identify relevant performance and outcome measures to monitor and report progress against the priorities. 

A streamlined process would, therefore, allow officers to focus on progress and improvement and also to address any performance issues.  Directors would be held to account for the delivery of the plan and its measures and should ensure that there was a clear golden thread through service and team planning.

In the revised corporate plan the number of priorities and outcomes had been significantly reduced.  This reflected the financial challenges that the Council was currently facing and reduced the level of bureaucracy required to manage, monitor and report progress against the new plan.  Officers have also sought to reduce any duplication and were building efficiencies into the way information was collated and report across the various commissions and partnership boards.

There were now four priorities, each with a maximum of three outcomes.  A set of key measures underpinned the outcomes and these measure the success of the outcome and overarching priority.  Where possible the number of measures were kept to a maximum of three, although for a couple of outcomes there were up to five measures. 

All suggested measureshave been developed and approved by the appropriate officers and Directors.  The list was included with the report for information and approval along with all other templates to be used to report progress against the plan.

It was proposed that an annual review of all indicators should take place in order to confirm continued relevance.  At this point indicators could be replaced if deemed appropriate.

A schedule for reporting was proposed by the Select Commission.  This would consist of a full Corporate Performance report being presented up to three times per fiscal year.  Two of these would include exception reporting against the whole plan with a further option during March for a further report or for the authority to take the opportunity to take pertinent information to the Commission.

A request had also been received for the use of an intranet area to be able to view current progress against corporate plan priorities and outcomes along with any information around performance management of the associated indicators.

The Performance and Quality Team were developing an area that both officers and Members could utilise to collate and monitor performance on a monthly basis.  This would need careful planning, but could be an open and transparent way of sharing performance data with Members and provided the ability to challenge.

In the previous framework, it was difficult to make a clear and accurate judgement on the success of the priorities.  Therefore, a more simple and easy to apply model was proposed to move forwards.  This would help to reduce the amount of subjectivity that officers have when rating the success of the measures and was a simple way of applying the rating to any indicator, outcome and/or priority.

It was intended for performance management of the approved measures to commence in April with the first report going to the Self-Regulation Select Commission in September.  In the meantime, work would continue on the intranet area and performance data collated and shared (following an approved protocol) when it became available.

A special thank you was given to all those involved in the work especially Councillors Atkin, Currie, Ellis and Watson.

It was also suggested that a presentation or training session be arranged for all Members of the Select Commission on how to access the intranet site.

A discussion and answer session ensued and the following issues were raised and subsequently clarified:-

·                Identification of a priority in “Red”, which was not always something the Council could control if it was a national issue.

·                Attendance of a responsible Director and/or Elected Member to explain when priorities were not being achieved and identified as “Red” on the RAG rating.

·                Development of specific performance indicator measures to monitor data and intervention to support the outcomes and priorities.

·                The sharing of best practice and opportunities for external assessment.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the proposals included in the report be noted.

(2)  That the Performance and Quality Team will begin monitoring and reporting against the new Corporate Plan priorities from 1st April, 2014, with the first report due to go to this Committee during September, 2014.

(3)  That the responsible Director and/or Cabinet Member be present at meetings when the reports are submitted to give explanations for any priorities in “Red”.

(4)  That consideration be given to a future training session for the Self Regulation Select Commission in September, 2014, to which all Elected Members would also be invited.