To consider the report.

The Panel considered the report that provided an overall view of progress being made on the work to strengthen the council’s approach to performance management. It set out the work that has been done to review and improve the key performance measures that measures against the Council’s priorities.  The report also provided an overall update on the council’s transformation strategy.

The Panel was informed that a first draft of a new performance framework had been developed which was now directly aligned to the priorities in the Council’s Strategic Plan. This was included at Appendix A. This was work in progress and would be subject to further refinement.  Officers and Lead Members were looking at reducing the number of performance measures and making them visible throughout the organisation.

The Chairman reported that every key function should have at least three Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with the IPMR reporting the core set of measures with managers using a dashboard that can be drilled down at different levels reflecting the work at that specific time.  It was recommended that further atomisation of reports / data collection be introduced.

Cllr Dr Evans mentioned that when they were looking at KPIs they could not understand how many were being used and thus it had been recommended that a dashboard of a few key indicators should be reported to Cabinet.

Cllr Jones mentioned that she supported the work being undertaken to streamline the reporting mechanism but that it was important that key indicators be reported to the appropriate scrutiny panels.  She mentioned that Cabinet reports were going through scrutiny but the KPIs may aid in identifying other areas that required review.  The Chairman mentioned that when the reporting mechanism had been set the KPIs could be sent to scrutiny panel chairman to decide what needed to go to Panels.

With regards to the transformation programme the Panel was informed of the fundamental service reviews that had been undertaken and those still to be done.  All directorates were also undertaking work to evaluate how if appropriate service delivery could be undertaken differently.  Due to the nature of these reviews they would be reported through Cabinet and Scrutiny Panels in Part II.

Cllr Dr Evans mentioned that the “Delivering Things Differently” report had gone to scrutiny panels but it had not been supported by any fundamental service review reports.  The Chairman agreed that it would be useful to have extracts from the FSR to support any recommendations being made in Cabinet reports.

The Chairman reported that the transformation process was to look at outcomes and then challenge them, looking back at methods used and assessing if they were still relevant and if they could be done better at a more cost-effective way and out of this should come the recommendations.

Cllr Jones mentioned that the reports should also be clear if the changes were to improve performance or to achieve savings by sacrificing performance to help Scrutiny make informed comments.   The chairman said that reports should articulate the vision; for example faster, better, cheaper and then demonstrate to Members how the vision would be achieved.

Cllr E Wilson questioned how joined up the FSRs were, for example how linked up was the schools’ expansion programme to the capital programme.  In response the Panel was informed that whilst discussing reviews such as education it would involve many of the same managers so such cross-cutting issues were included. 

With regards to the ‘right people and tools’ thread it was mentioned that the authority was good at day-to-day HR work but not as good at HR strategy; we should be looking at challenge, critique and correct.

Cllr Jones mentioned that if a review came to the conclusion that extra resource was required in a service would this be a recommendation or were the reviews just about savings.  The Panel was informed that although the authority had to make savings where extra resources were required if appropriate such a recommendation would be made.

Resolved unanimously: that the Panel note the progress update and agree the proposed timetable of future review by the panel.