Meeting documents

SC/15/10

Place Scrutiny Committee

17 June 2015

Performance report on the progress of the Council's Strategic Priorities

Report of the Head of Services for Communities

1. Summary

This report outlines performance against the Council's Strategic priorities across the organisation within the remit of this committee for Quarter 4 (January to March) of 2014/15.

2. Introduction

Performance management and scrutiny is essential to embed a culture of openness, learning and improvement within the organisation. This report outlines current performance against the Council's Strategic Vision, Better Together and outlines developments in place to improve and adapt our performance management and reporting arrangements to reflect the delivery of the Better Together vision.

3. Content

This report provides an update on performance[1] against the five priority areas of Better Together alongside the key outcomes the Council is working towards for each priority. In addition, the report includes specific operational performance dashboards, an update on risks, and further information on future reporting developments.

4. Performance against the Better Together Vision

The Operational Quarterly Report at Appendix A outlines performance against key projects under the five key Better Together priorities: Resilient, Healthy, Prosperous, Connected and Safe. The report shows an overall project status (alongside a RAG (red, amber, green) rating status marker), progress against the project milestones, and some narrative reporting from responsible officers.

The report outlines most areas as Green, i.e. on track/on target, with two projects now completed. Five areas within the report are identified as Amber and one Red.

Appendix A will be updated on a quarterly basis - updates will be available in January, April, July and October of each year.

5. Risk Management

All risks recorded in the Corporate Risk Register falling under the remit of the Place Leadership Team are shown in Appendix B. The risks are assessed at least every six months. Appendix B includes:

risk status;

an explanation of the impact of the risk if realised;

details of the mitigating actions in place to manage the risk, with a status (RAG rating) marker showing progress on each action.

Corporate Leadership Team have recently reviewed the Corporate Risk Register as part of their regular business and have added a range of new strategic risks to be developed and assessed over the coming weeks. These will be available in the coming weeks and will be available for review by the committee at its next meeting.

6. Developing new performance arrangements

Members will be aware of developments around performance reporting in the previous committee. In particular, further developments around the visual presentation of data to help support the figures themselves.

6.1. Community Lens

As part of exploring a new approach to performance and how information is shared and presented to different audiences we have developed a series of products to see performance through a community lens - Appendix C.

This work is based on a set of measures which have been developed around the five Better Together themes, to help illustrate a picture of community resilience. The measures have been selected based on their appropriateness, usefulness and availability at a community level.

6.2. Dashboards

Dashboard views are still under development; current versions continue to be updated and improved using feedback from the committee and from the owners of the projects and data concerned. Place-based services prototype dashboards now exist for Highways and Connecting Devon and Somerset project (Broadband) - see Appendices D and E. A new template is being developed for Waste services in the near future.

7. Recommendations

The Committee is asked to:-

Review the information provided in the report;

Consider including items for greater scrutiny in the Forward Plan.

John Smith

Head of Services for Communities

Appendices

Appendix A: Better Together Operational Quarterly Report

Appendix B: Place Risk Report

Appendix C: Community Lens

Appendix D: Highways Dashboard

Appendix E: Connecting Devon & Somerset (Broadband) Dashboard

Electoral Divisions: All

Cabinet Member for Performance and Engagement: Councillor Barry Parsons

Strategic Director, Place: Heather Barnes

Local Government Act 1972: List of Background Papers

Contact for enquiries: Simon Kitchen

Room No. County Hall, Exeter. EX2 4QD

Tel No: (01392) 383000

Background Paper		Date	File Reference
Nil

sk030615psc Performance

hk 02 080614

---

[1] Projects agreed at Place Scrutiny on 19 November 2014.