Introduction
The Government believes that local authorities have a duty to secure Best Value in the provision of services. As a result, the Local Government Act 1999 enshrines the duty of Best Value in law. The Act states that:
“A Best Value authority must make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.”
To achieve Best Value the Government requires local authorities to include major services in a national framework of:
- General health indicators
- National Best Value service indicators
- National minimum standards
It also requires local authorities to undertake fundamental performance reviews encompassing what has become known as the four ‘C’s’. This means:
Update on Best Value
A White Paper on Local Government, Strong Local Leadership, Quality Public Services, was published by the DTLR in December 2001. This stated the Government’s desire to see strong local government delivering services and providing community leadership.
Focusing on Best Value, the Government introduced a comprehensive National Performance Framework for services. This defined service priorities and performance standards and included details on Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA)
In March 2003, the Government published a circular (ODPM circular 03/2003) on Best Value and Performance Improvement, consolidating and replacing the existing guidance contained in DETR circulars 10/99 and 02/01. This placed best value in the context of CPA.
Statutory instrument no.2002/305, the Local Government (Best Value) Performance Plans and Reviews Amendment and Specified Dates Order, had already made changes to the best value regime, principally by:
- Revoking the requirement for councils to review all their functions in a five year cycle
- Changing the publication date for the Performance Plan to 30th June
The circular went on from this to cover:
Valuing the Workforce – the circular emphasises that good service delivery is dependent on a skilled and motivated workforce, and that all providers must have policies to secure this. It includes the code of practice on workforce matters in local government service contracts, which was announced in February 2003. The Government will also lay an order requiring councils to consult recognised unions and employees’ associations, and staff when conducting best value reviews.
Reviewing Performance – the broad principle for conducting reviews remains the ‘Four C’s’. The circular notes that councils have found ‘challenge’ difficult and emphasises the role of elected members in helping to ensure that the scope of reviews reflects the objectives and priorities of the council.
On competition and procurement, the circular sets out the Government’s definition of ‘the optimum combination of whole life costs and benefits to meet the customer’s requirements’. This approach, it says, enables sustainability and quality to be taken into account when service delivery options are being considered, including social factors such as benefits to local people, good workforce management, community safety, diversity and fairness.
Council’s are expected to draw up a review programme, which ‘reflects their pattern of strengths and weaknesses’ as identified, by their CPA.
The Council has amended its Best Value Review Guidance Manual to incorporate the latest guidance and best practice, and to take on board the experience gained from undertaking a number of reviews and Best Value Inspections. Much of the theory was removed and the emphasis was placed on practical aspects to streamline the process and focus on key issues.
Comprehensive Performance Assessment
Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) was introduced by the Government in December 2001 It is a key element of the Government's performance framework for local government and will support improvement planning in local authorities and lead to co-ordinated and proportionate audit and inspection and increased freedoms and flexibilities for “excellent” local authorities.
The Audit Commission will carry out the Assessments and will form a judgement on the performance and proven corporate capacity of every single tier, county council and district council in England. Once a judgement has been formed, the Audit Commission will produce a 'balanced scorecard' for every authority, available to the public.
The Audit Commission carried out the assessments for all the single tier and county councils in 2002. At the same time it piloted a district council approach at ten pathfinder councils. In the light of that experience, the Audit Commission carried out a further countywide pilot for the seven district councils in West Sussex.
As a result the Audit Commission has now decided on the assessment framework which will be applied to district councils. All district councils will be assessed between June 2003 and autumn 2004. Babergh and the other Suffolk districts will be assessed in June 2004.
The main elements of the intended approach to CPA for district councils are as follows:
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Council self-assessment.
- A corporate assessment – informed by the peer report and the Authority’s self-assessment.
- Two diagnostic assessments of the Council:-
- management of public space
- meeting the decent homes standard for Council housing.
Accredited peer challenge of the Council’s self-assessment.
The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate’s (BFI) assessment of benefits services.
External auditor’s assessments of performance on each of the main elements of the code of audit practice.
Audited performance indicators, inspection reports and plan assessments.
The objective is to form an overall judgement as to whether the Council is:-
- Excellent
- Good
- Fair
- Weak
- Poor
The CPA is extremely important. The assessment will tell our residents, our staff, our partners, Government departments, and other local authorities how good Babergh is. A “poor” categorisation can result in Government intervention, whilst an “excellent” assessment should result in additional freedoms and flexibilities.
The Council is working to a clear Action Plan which sets out what needs to be done to prepare for the CPA, and by whom. This is shown at Appendix 4
Preparation for CPA will be approached through two broad stages:
- An initial run through of the self-assessments – to determine our strengths and weaknesses and develop initial improvement plans
- Preparation for the actual CPA – the self-assessments and the visit of the Assessment Team.
Local Government Improvement Team Visit (Peer Review)
In February 2003 the Council hosted a visit by a Local Government Improvement Team (Peer Review Team). The Review Team was here at the invitation of the Council.
There has been considerable change in Local Government and most Councils are trying to work out how best to respond and to prepare for Comprehensive Performance Assessments. The aim of the Peer Review was to offer help to us to assess our current achievements and to identify areas in which we were doing well and those where we needed to do better.
The Review Team undertook a review NOT an inspection. Its intention was to help the Council recognise and celebrate its strengths as much as identify its weaknesses.
The Review Team looked at every aspect of the Council focusing on the three key organisational themes of –
- Leadership
- Democratic and Community Engagement
- Performance Management
The Review Team recognised a number of strengths, but also reinforced the work that we are already doing to eliminate or minimise weaknesses through initiatives like Investors In People, the Service and Financial Planning Process, Local Strategic Partnerships and E-government.
The Review Team issued a Final report and a summary of this is shown at Appendix 5. The Council has now set up an Action Plan to deal with the issues raised in the report and this is shown at Appendix 6.
Efficiency Improvements
Best Value means that we must look at how our services can be more efficient, both in terms of cost and quality. This is not new to Babergh. For many years we have had an approach to our work which strives for the greatest levels of efficiency and effectiveness, and real savings.
Best Value is about improving the quality of our services in the most efficient, effective and economic way. Our approach is not to set ‘efficiency targets’ for individual service reviews, but we recognise that the Best Value process should make service delivery more efficient. To help achieve this we have introduced a series of initiatives to improve efficiency and look for savings. These include:-
Service Planning – the Council has reviewed its purpose and aims and all services must set out what they will do to contribute to these.
Continuous Improvement – the Council is aiming for all of its services to meet or beat the performance of the ‘top’ 25% of all district councils. We have developed a system to measure how we are performing and to monitor our progress against our targets. At the same time, we will focus our resources on meeting community needs.
Asset Management – we have developed a plan to make sure we use our land and property holdings in the most cost effective way.
Benchmarking – this is undertaken to help improve performance by comparison with the standards achieved by others. The objective is to improve areas of weakness and to seek opportunities for improvement through careful examination of indicators collected from similar and other organisations.
Babergh is currently a member of three benchmarking clubs, the Inter Authorities Group, the Daventry Benchmarking Club and the Rural Authorities Benchmarking Club.
Investors In People –Investors in People (IIP) is the national standard which sets the level of good practice for improving an organisation's performance through its people.
We know our future depends on our staff – hence we have chosen to pursue the IIP Standard. This requires assessment against 12 indicators.
We have taken the following steps to prepare for assessment
- Working groups and Steering Group set up
- Initial Action Plan drafted
- Action Plan checked through a Health Check (52 staff interviewed)
- Staff questionnaire
- Final Action Plan drafted taking into account the Health Check and the questionnaire
- Action Plan implemented.
Outcomes of the Action Plan
The Steering Group concluded in February 2003 that the Action Plan had been implemented. The main outcomes were:
Training and development
- A Corporate Training Policy
- Better identification of the support and development needs of all staff through the appraisal process
- Strengthening the approach to training planning by reviewing the adequacy of training budgets to meet identified training needs
- A revised Corporate Induction Programme.
Appraisal system
- A revised appraisal system and documentation to increase the value of the system and give better identification of training and development needs.
Management
- Reviewed and clarified the corporate and divisional responsibilities of Management Team and heads of service.
- Implemented clear political leadership arrangements within a new constitution to clarify the overall purpose and direction of the Council.
Communications
- Produced and circulated a Good Communications Guide
- Staff are informed when corporate items are placed on the intranet
- Reviewed and revised Talking Shop to give wider readership and more staff input
- Implemented a wider circulation of press releases so that staff are more in touch with major Council issues
- Formalised staff/team meeting arrangements – regular divisional meetings held
- Introduced topical, programmed meetings between Management Team and staff.
Staff input into the work of the council and their division
- Disseminated the Corporate aims more widely through the intranet, Talking Shop and divisional meetings
- Gave staff the opportunity to have input into the annual review of the Corporate aims
- Provided staff with access to the Best Value Performance Plan, divisional annual reports, and divisional service plans
- Reviewed the service plan development process to allow for staff input
We have now applied for IIP accreditation and the assessment will take place during the week beginning 14 July 2003.
The Service Review Programme
Best Value Reviews are a key element in ensuring that Councils deliver value for money and continuous improvement.
We are required to publish a programme of reviews, which ensures that all functions are covered. The requirement for Councils to review all their functions in a five-year cycle has been removed. Revocation of the ‘five year rule’ did not remove the legal requirement on Councils to review their functions, but it did mean that we would have more discretion to choose what functions we reviewed and when we reviewed them.
The Best Value Service Review Programme is reviewed on an annual basis to ensure that it:
- Contributes to organisational and cultural change
- Is manageable to conduct and to implement
- Reflects experiences and addresses issues raised by the Audit Commission Inspectorate and the ODPM.
The current programme is shown at Appendix 7.
The Revenues Review was scheduled to be completed in April 2003. However, following the outcome of the Local Government Improvement Visit, it was decided to subject this Review to a stronger ‘challenge’ element. The Review is now scheduled to be completed in August 2003.
The Cultural Services Review has been under way for some time. However, following the publication of the CPA Framework, the terms of reference are being re-assessed.
The Review Programme will continue to be monitored and revised as necessary. 2003/04 has been left flexible to reflect reviews necessary for CPA preparation and the rest of the Programme will be developed in the light of the CPA result.
Completed Reviews
Two Best Value Pilot Reviews were carried out in 1999 prior to the Statutory Requirements coming into force. These were Development Control and Horticulture. Action plans were drafted and agreed for both reviews. The Horticulture action plan was fully implemented during 2001/02. The Development Control action plan covered five years and is still being implemented and monitored. The current action plan is shown at Appendix 8.
We have completed eight other reviews in the last three years, details of which follow.
Building Control
A review of the Building Control function was carried out and the results of this, including an action plan were reported to Council in February 2001.
In May 2001, following an inspection, the Best Value Inspectorate judged the service as a ‘Good’ 2 star service which will probably improve
The action plan for this review is shown at Appendix 9.
Environmental services
The results of the review, including the action plan were reported to Council in February 2002. In May 2002 following an inspection, the Best Value Inspectorate judged the service as a ‘Good’ 2 star service that has promising prospects for improvement.
The action plan for this review is shown at Appendix 10.
Finance and Performance Review
- The Review was completed in December 2001 and the results of the review, including the action plan were reported to Council in April 2002. The action plan for this review is shown at Appendix 11.
Tenant Services
The results of the review, including the action plan were reported to Council in April 2002. In March 2003 an Audit Commission inspection team carried out an inspection of the review. The team summarised the service thus:
We have assessed the Council as providing a ‘good’, two-star Service that has excellent prospects for improvement. Our judgements are based on the evidence obtained during the inspection and are outlined below.
We have assessed the Service as good because tenants have good access to Housing Services through the main office, and the Service standards tenants can expect are clear and readily available. There are comprehensive procedures in place for Housing Management Services and joint working arrangements to address antisocial behaviour. The new Estate Ranger is able to respond quickly to estate management problems in housing estate areas. Tenant satisfaction levels are very high for most aspects of the Service.
Tenants are satisfied with the quality and time taken to carry out repairs. We found robust arrangements in place for annual gas servicing. The Council has invested in the housing stock over the years and projects that it will be able to meet the Decent Homes Standard within existing resources by 2008. The Council offers a good standard of sheltered accommodation and there are initiatives in place to address issues of difficult to let stock across the District.
There are structures in place to facilitate tenant participation with a well established Tenants Forum. Tenants have a range of information available to them and are involved in all housing issues.
However, the Council only offers limited money and debt advice and there is no long term strategy for dealing with former tenant arrears. A formal appointments system is not yet in place for customers reporting repairs. Tenants are not currently involved in monitoring the performance of the Service although procedures are being developed to address this.
The Council does not yet fully comply with the Commission for Racial Equality Code of Practice for Rented Housing.
The Council cannot demonstrate the transparency of some of its allocations procedures and some of the written information available to applicants is out of date. At the time of our inspection this information was being reprinted.
We have assessed the Council’s prospects for improvement as excellent.
The Council has undertaken a robust review of Tenant Services and produced an extensive improvement plan which should result in service improvements to customers. All the improvement actions have clear links to the Council’s corporate objectives. A number of improvements have already been implemented and some are underway.
Lessons learned from the estate renewal work on the Anglia Estate have been used in other renewal projects. Babergh are looking to increase the amount of affordable housing up to 35 per cent on new developments. The Council has worked in partnership to develop a digital television service and to provide services through on-street kiosks.
However, there has been some slippage with some improvement actions, such as with the provision of debt advice.
The inspection identified the following strengths of the Services:
- High tenant satisfaction with Housing Services as identified by the National Housing Federation STATUS survey.
- The ‘Babergh Choices’ booklet itemises the various types of property the Council has in each Parish and how many vacancies have arisen in each property type in each Parish over the past three years. This allows applicants to make an informed choice of where to live and has helped the Council to improve efficiency in the lettings process particularly with regard to allocating harder to let properties.
- Application forms for council housing and garages are available for downloading from the Council’s website giving easy access to customers.
- Every member of staff has their own individual targets set annually which follows the Housing Service Plan targets as well as some individually developed targets. We found that staff were clear about the levels of performance expected from them.
- Introductory tenancies being used to effectively reduce antisocial behaviour.
- Joint working arrangements to achieve a multi-agency approach for dealing with antisocial behaviour.
- Initiatives introduced to reduce crime and disorder on estates.
- Estate Ranger Service for the Great Cornard and Sudbury area providing a quick response to problems on estates.
- Effective investment in the housing stock to ensure that properties are generally in good condition.
- Returned customer satisfaction slips are used for contract monitoring and staff appraisals.
- Robust arrangements for ensuring the annual gas servicing of properties.
- Ability to meet the Decent Homes Standard before the Government deadlines within existing resources as a result of investment over the years.
- Babergh has balanced the competing demands of applicants in different circumstances with a good match of allocations from homeless, general needs and transfer list applicants.
- An ongoing programme to convert difficult to let properties into more desirable homes.
- Effective procedures in place to promote difficult to let properties by advertising them in the style of estate agent particulars and using open days.
- A bi-annual newsletter is sent to all applicants on the housing register.
- Good standard of sheltered accommodation across the District with tenants generally satisfied with the services available.
- Effective partnership arrangements in place with Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), the Police, the County Council and ‘not for profit’ organisations to deliver Housing Services.
- Strong structures in place for formal tenant participation.
However, a number of aspects require further attention including:
- Advice available to tenants on debt issues is limited.
- Housing management costs are high when compared to other councils.
- At present appointments are not offered for responsive repairs.
- At present the Council does not fully comply with the Commission for Racial Equality Code of Practice for Rented Housing.
- Current published information on allocations does align with current Council policy.
- Councillor complaints are not recorded.
- No performance monitoring of Services by tenants.
Recommendations
To rise to the challenge of continuous improvement Councils need inspection reports that offer practical pointers for improvement. In this context, the inspection team feels that the Council should now take action to resolve a number of general, political, managerial and partnership issues.
We recommend that the Council should:
- Establish an allocations policy that, whilst providing flexibility to deal with one off situations, is transparent and can clearly demonstrate that it is equitable for all applicants.
- Ensure literature available to housing applicants is in line with current Council policy and review procedures to check transparency.
- Record Councillor complaints and feed the information obtained into Service planning.
- Implement plans to shift the balance of planned and responsive maintenance works towards Audit Commission recommended levels of 60 per cent planned to 40 per cent responsive.
- Implement the stock condition module to minimise data redundancy with regard to stock condition survey information.
- Set more challenging targets to ensure that those performance indicators that are not currently in the top quartile will be by 2005.
- Review the apportionment of these costs in line with Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy guidance.
- Take action to address all other weaknesses identified in this report.
- Present this report to the Housing Task Group and the Tenants Forum.
The inspection team made a number of recommendations where it felt the Council should take action to resolve a number of general, political, managerial and partnership issues. At a meeting with the inspection team and the Housing Best Value Lead Inspector, officers were able to demonstrate that a number of the recommendations had already been dealt with and that the remainder had been incorporated into the existing improvement plan. This plan is shown at Appendix 12
Car Parking
The results of the review, including the action plan were reported to Council in April 2002. The action plan for this review is shown at Appendix 13.
Interaction With The Public
A summary of the review and its findings are shown at Appendix 14. The results of the review, including the action plan were reported to the Strategy Committee in October 2002. The action plan which runs to 33 pages has not been attached but is available on request.
Technical Services
A summary of the review and its findings are shown at Appendix 15. The results of the review, including the action plan were reported to Council in December 2002. Because of the length of the action plan, it has not been attached.
Housing Support
A summary of the review and its findings are shown at Appendix 16. The results of the review, including the action plan were reported to Council in April 2003. The action plan for this review is shown at Appendix 17.
Current Ongoing Reviews
Reviews are currently being undertaken in the Benefits, Revenues and Local Taxation function, Cultural Services and Community Safety. Results from these will be presented to Council in line with the Service Review Programme set out earlier in the Performance Plan.
The Revenues Review was scheduled to be completed in April 2003. However, following the outcome of the Local Government Improvement Visit, it was decided to subject this Review to a stronger ‘challenge’ element. The Review report was presented to the Overview and Scrutiny (Stewardship) Committee in June and will go on to the Strategy Committee and Council in July and August respectively.
The Cultural Services Review has been under way for some time. However, following the publication of the CPA Framework, the terms of reference are being re-assessed. A detailed timetable will be drafted once this re-assessment has taken place.
In May a two-day county-wide workshop was held to determine the scope of the Community Services Review.
The workshop objectives were:
- To establish the high-level scope for the Best Value Review (BVR)
- To establish the objectives of the BVR, and to show how they contribute to the objectives for Community Safety improvements in Suffolk
- To establish the desired outcomes from the BVR (in terms of tangible improvements to service delivery) – and gain buy-in to, and accountability for, their realisation
- To recommend an approach to a Joint BVR which is owned by, and acceptable to all of the stakeholders represented
The workshop was part of Phase 1 of a wider process for establishing an effective approach to the Joint BVR.
The participants in the workshop were:
- Babergh District Council
- Suffolk Coastal District Council
- Forest Heath District Council
- Suffolk Constabulary
- Ipswich Borough Council
- Suffolk County Council
- Mid Suffolk District Council
- Suffolk Police Authority
- St Edmundsbury Borough Council
- Waveney District Council
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