Appendix A
Performance
Management
Framework
Contents
Introduction
Page 2
1. Community Plans
Page 2
2. Corporate Plan
Page 2
3. Service Plans
Page 4
4. Performance Indicators
Page 4
5. Quarterly Business Reviews
Page 5
6. QPR
Page 5
7. Benchmarking
Page 6
8. Risk Management
Page 6
9. Data Quality
Page 6
Appendix A – Corporate Governance diagram
Page 7
Contact Details
Chris Churchill, Performance, Risk & Insurance Team Leader – Ext 2346,
[email protected]
Richard Smith, Performance & Risk Officer – Ext 8078,
[email protected]
Produced: March 2013
Review Date: March 2015
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Introduction
Performance Management is an important tool for monitoring the efficiency and effectiveness of the services the council delivers and driving improvements. It is used not only to measure success, but to also provide early warnings if performance begins to drop.
Every employee is responsible for performance management in their area, whether it is achieving personal targets (such as appraisal actions) or helping the whole team achieve its objectives. Appendix A shows how performance management is one part of our Corporate Governance arrangements.
1. Community Plans
Sustainable Community Plans set out a shared vision for the future of an area for public, private and voluntary sector organisations to improve the quality of life for communities. West Dorset and Weymouth & Portland each have their own Community Plans. There is also a Community Plan for Dorset, ‘Shaping our future: The Community Strategy for Dorset 2007-2016’ (excluding Poole and Bournemouth).
2. Corporate Plan
The Corporate Plan sets out the strategic direction of the council for a four-year period. Each council has its own Corporate Plan which will be refreshed annually. The current Corporate Plan is for the period 2013-2017. It contains:-
Our Vision
“To be a forward-looking council, focused on efficient and effective customer-friendly services to support communities and businesses to meet their needs and aspirations”.
Core Values (PRIDE)
P
rofessional – ethical with high standards of conduct and always providing sound advice;R
espect – for all people, fair in all our dealings and for our environment ensuring presentactions do not compromise future generations;
I
nnovative – always seeking better, more creative, efficient and economic ways of working;D
eveloping Staff – valued as our greatest asset, with good training and a supportiveenvironment;
E
nabling – helping local communities and businesses to shape their future and realise theirambitions.
Corporate Aims and Priorities - with partners: Economy
Facilitating inward investment to create more better-paid jobs Improve infrastructure to enable businesses to grow
Supporting businesses through the recession and recovery Regenerating and supporting vibrant town centres
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Communities
Preventing homelessness and supporting communities to meet their housing needs Working with partners to improve public health and wellbeing
Facilitating sustainable leisure, culture and community activities Ensuring safe and thriving communities with respect for each other
Environment
Creating a planning framework which balances environmental protection with meeting community and economic needs
Protecting and enhancing the built and natural environment
Managing the implications of climate change, including flooding and coastal protection
Deliver an improved and cost effective waste and cleansing service through the Dorset Waste Partnership
Performance
Deliver the benefits of the shared service partnership between West Dorset District Council and Weymouth & Portland Borough Council
Adapting service delivery to the changed financial environment
Ensuring the delivery of efficient and economic services which are shaped by customer needs Deliver a workforce with the knowledge and skills to meet the future needs of the councils
Corporate Projects sit below Priorities and give a more detailed and specific description of what
success against the Priority will look like in 4 years’ time. They are projects that have a defined start and finish so that we can monitor performance against them and know when they are completed. Some Projects will be already written into our major strategies.
Annual Actions are set each year so that progress can be monitored against the Projects above
them. Actions represent major stages of a Project within each financial year. We monitor our progress against each Action using QPR, and report to committees through the quarterly Business
Review.
3. Service Plans
Aims
•EconomyPriorities
•Improve infrastructure to enable businesses to growProjects
•Achieve 24 MB per second broadband access to 90% of Dorset domestic and business premises by December 2016
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Annual service plans will be created each April in the council’s joint corporate performance management system (QPR).
When writing new strategies, policies or plans, direction should be taken from the Corporate Plan so that the strategy, policy or plan can clearly show that it is helping the council achieve its Priorities. This is often referred to as a ‘golden thread’, which should also display a link from strategies, policies or plans to personal targets set in staff appraisals. Sometimes, the golden thread will work both ways, the Corporate Plan will take a lead from objectives already set in some of the council’s major
strategies.
Diagram showing golden thread
4. Performance Indicators
Corporate Health Key PIs – these are the council’s most business-critical KPIs. These are reported
through the quarterly Business Review to Management Team and councillors via Executive
Committee (WDDC) or Management Committee and Scrutiny & Performance Committee (WPBC).
Service Key PIs – each of our services have KPIs which monitor the most important areas of their
duties. Key PIs are monitored monthly or quarterly via the QPR system. This notifies managers whether the service’s key performance is on-target. These are reported through the quarterly
Business Review to Management Team and councillors via Executive Committee (WDDC) or
Management Committee and Scrutiny & Performance Committee (WPBC).
Other PIs – each service may also have a range of other PIs, monitored via the QPR system, to
manage performance. These PIs may be monitored monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annually, and should be backed up with sound evidence each time they are updated. Other PIs will not be reported to Management Team or any committees, but they should be monitored regularly by managers and team leaders.
Some of these PIs will measure our performance against corporate service standards, e.g. telephone answering.
Corporate
Plan
Service Plans
& Strategies
Team Plans & Strategies
Individual Actions
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Single data list – in addition to our self-imposed performance indicators, all councils must adhere to
the submission of data according to the government’s Single Data List. The list contains numerous compulsory submissions that Local Authorities must make to various government bodies. The list for each service is held in QPR, attached to the “Service Data” element of each Service Manager’s Scorecard.
5. Quarterly Business Reviews
Every quarter, we will produce Business Reviews which are reported to Management Team and councillors via Executive Committee (WDDC) or Management Committee and Scrutiny &
Performance Committee (WPBC) containing the latest status of the council’s key data. The performance elements of the quarterly Business Reviews consist of:-
Corporate Plan Actions – an update for each of the current year annual actions.
Corporate Health and Service Key PIs – the latest figure against the target and a comment from the Service Manager based on the current performance.
Corporate Risks and high level Service Risks – current risk scores and mitigating controls from the joint corporate risk register and the high or very high risks from Service risk
registers.
The quarterly Business Reviews also contain financial information including budget monitoring information for each service, capital reports, reserves reports, income graphs and a treasury management report.
6. QPR
QPR is our joint corporate performance management system. It allows both councils to monitor and report on a wide variety of measures that help to gauge corporate health and the performance of individual services. It also houses various quantitative and qualitative data reports to supplement our performance measures. Items we hold in the system include:-
Corporate Plan Service Plan actions Performance Indicators
Risks (Corporate and Service Risks) Policies and Strategies
Cost per head analysis
QPR can be accessed by all staff and councillors through the ‘Work’ area of the council’s Intranet. However, access into the system for the first time must be granted by the Performance & Risk Team upon request. QPR is available 24 hours a day.
Please contact the team at any time if you require any one-to-one training or assistance. User guides for QPR can be emailed on request, or found on the intranet.
7. Benchmarking
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There are 201 District/Borough Councils in England. Wherever possible, the Performance & Risk Team will source Best Value/VFM benchmarking reports for each service, and attach them to the “Service Data” element of the relevant service in QPR. They can provide a financial context to complement the performance data we generate.
The most common way of benchmarking is against our council’s “15 Most Similar” group of
authorities. The group contains 15 other councils which are deemed similar to ours across a range of criteria, which allows for reasonably robust comparisons.
QPR contains information based on net revenue budget per head of population (excludes capital charges) of various services within each council compared against each council’s 15 most similar group.
8. Risk Management
Risk registers are produced at both corporate (strategic) and service (operational) level. Each risk is scored on a 5 x 5 matrix; one score of 1 to 5 for the Likelihood of it happening, and another of 1 to 5 for the Impact if it did happen. These two numbers multiplied together make an overall Risk Score (1 to 25).
We may already have mitigating controls in place to help control the risk, and can add actions that would enable us to control it even better in the future.
All risk registers are held in QPR. Each risk consists of three scores: Raw, Current and Target.
Raw is the score the risk would represent if we have no controls in place at all;
Current is the score at the present time, taking into account the controls we believe that we already have in place. Assuming that we already have some kind of control against all our risks, generally the Current score will be lower than the Raw score.
Target is the score that could be achieved if we put all desirable control measures in place. We may wish to formulate an action plan to get us from the Current to the Target score. In some instances, the Current score may already be the same as the Target score, i.e. we have all desirable controls in place.
Further information on Risk Management can be found in our joint Risk Management Strategy (click here) adopted in September 2012.
9. Data Quality
Both councils have draft Data Quality policies that seek to ensure that all data is sufficiently accurate for the intended purpose in hand, i.e. “fit for purpose”. Good quality data should be Accurate, Valid, Reliable, Timely, Relevant and Complete. We aspire that data is “right first time, every time”.
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The diagram below shows how Performance Management contributes to our overall Corporate Governance arrangements.