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ITEM BV13

INSPECTIONS OF BEST VALUE REVIEWS

Report by Director for Strategy

1. At its briefing on 19 July 2002, the Best Value Committee requested that a report be provided on lessons learned from best value inspections. In addition, at the committee meeting on 24 July 2002 the committee requested that proposals to strengthen the current approach to monitoring implementation of review outcomes be brought to the meeting on 11 September.
2. This report draws together areas for improvement identified from all of Oxfordshire’s best value inspections to date and presents the action we propose to take in response. Information has been taken from the final reports from four full inspections, four desktop inspections and five joint inspections carried out by OFSTED and /or the Audit Commission over the past two years. Copies of all reports are available in the Members Resource Room.
3. A summary of the inspection outcomes is provided in the tables below. Note that for desktop inspections, judgements are not made about the quality of services and the Inspectorate does not publish the reports.

Full Inspections

Review Title	Date of Inspection	Date of Final Report	Judgement
Highway Management*	Feb 2001	Sept 2001	A fair service, that will probably improve
Arts and Recreation	Jun 2001	Nov 2001	A fair service that has uncertain prospects for improvement
Waste Management*	Apr 2002	Jun 2002	A good service that has excellent prospects for improvement
Library Service	Jul 2002	Awaiting final report	Confidential until report finalised – subject to challenge

*Initial judgement challenged successfully

Joint Inspections with OFSTED

Review Title	Date of Inspection	Date of Final Report	Judgement
Early Years And Childcare Service	Nov 2001	Dec 2001	A good service, prospects for improvement are promising.
Support For Schools Causing Concern	Nov 2001	Dec 2001	A satisfactory service, it has promising prospects to improve further
Special Needs Transport	Nov 2001	Dec 2001	A satisfactory service, prospects for the service improving are currently uncertain.
Students Support	Nov 2001	Dec 2001	A good service which has promising prospects for improvement
ICT Support For Schools	Nov 2001	Dec 2001	A broadly satisfactory service, the likelihood of further improvement is promising

Desktop Inspections

Review Title	Date of Inspection	Date of Final Report	Conclusions
Internal Audit, External Audit and Risk Management	Nov 2001	Jan 2002	A full inspection of the Internal Audit service is not required, although the service should be included in any wider inspection of finance or central services
Legal Services	Nov 2001	Jan 2002	A full inspection is not recommended
Social inclusion	Nov 2001	Jan 2002	A full inspection is not required
Transport Capital Programme Procurement	Nov 2001	Jan 2002	The Council should revise its best value programme to ensure that there will be a comprehensive evaluation of the Local Transport Plan, and success in delivering it on the ground, within two years.

4. General points raised in inspection reports

Inspectors’ remarks have been condensed and are shown in the table below. The listed strengths and areas for improvement have been drawn from across the inspections and are not contradicted at any point. Inconsistencies are areas that were judged as strengths in some reviews and areas for improvement in others.

Strengths	Areas for Improvement	Inconsistencies among reviews inspected
Clear corporate framework for managing reviews	Fundamental challenge is weak	Application of compare, consult and compete
Reviews completed on time	A general update for all staff on BV should be provided	Timeliness of reviews
Corporate guidance to fundamental service review was comprehensive	The Council should further consider the provision of training provided for Best Value	Aims and purpose of reviews
Members and strategic officers have all been involved	Improvement plans look to make incremental changes and are unlikely to deliver significant improvements	Quality of improvement plans
Improvement plans identify appropriate actions and reasonable time-scales	Parts of some implementation plans have been delayed or put under review
Good support from the central Best Value team	Better application of performance management is required to track progress post-review and to understand what results are being delivered
	Generally a lack of clear links between service aims, the Council’s overall policy aims and national policy objectives
	Make clear how the Council as a whole will implement cross-cutting reviews
	Revise the Best Value review programme
	Fully implement District Audit recommendations before developing other aspects of improvement plans

5. Approach to best value and best value Reviews

• develop our approach to the 4Cs, particularly in the application of Challenge. The element of challenge is improving, and in some cases has been good but it is still an area of weakness overall. The Compete element of reviews has also been variable
• demonstrate a clear purpose for each review
• improve the scoping of reviews with a focus on achieving significant change.
• progress implementation more actively.

1. The intention is to build on the good examples of using external experts, and more recently of Peer Challenge as promoted by I&DeA. External experts have been used in a number of reviews, such as the Library Service and currently Property, and Peer Challenge forms a part of the review of Promoting Independence for Older People. Both approaches have resource implications.
2. Continue to implement the changes to the review process outlined in the report to the Best Value Committee on 27 March 2002, including more careful scoping and evaluation of key issues prior to developing options for improvement, and securing greater independence (challenge element) in review teams.

6. Comments have been made by inspectors regarding the timing of reviews. For example, a number of early Education reviews were conducted not long after the LEA inspection by OFSTED and before post-OFSTED action plans had been fully implemented, a situation considered to be "not entirely satisfactory".
7. The Council responded to early criticisms of the review programme by adapting the schedule of work to reduce the number of reviews undertaken; increase the size of areas reviewed and, as of this year, to align reviews clearly to the organisation’s strategic objectives and pressing issues. The message from inspectors continues to be to select broader areas for review and consider the choice of reviews in relation to previous evaluations of service areas by other Inspectorates, District Audit and perhaps, internal teams.
8. The process to select the review programme for 2003-04 will begin in the autumn and it is important that the areas selected continue to reflect these lessons learnt and address areas of significance to the Council.

Proposed action: in developing the review programme for 2003-04, there will be active participation by the Executive, Best Value Committee and CCMT. The aim is to have the programme agreed by the end of 2002.

9. Improvement plans

Inspections look not just at services’ performance, but also at the Authority’s support for services to deliver improvements. Performance and Review has reported to the Best Value Committee its concerns over implementation (27 March 2002). Similar concerns have been echoed in inspection reports. Action and implementation plans have been weak in a number of reviews and there is an expectation that they will become more robust and carefully planned. Desktop inspections highlighted "the need to make sure that reviews lead to significant improvements that will help the Council deliver policy outcomes, lead to noticeable changes for users, and match top-performing councils". This year we have introduced a new system for monitoring outcomes. Lead officers are taking reports to Best Value Committee outlining where targets have been met, where there has been slippage and what has been done to address this, and in some cases why the improvements proposed are no longer applicable. This process has begun to be effective as lead officers are aware of the committee’s on-going interest in the area. However, the standard of reports to date has been variable.

Proposed action:

1. Continue to implement the changes to the review process outlined in the report to the Best Value Committee on 27 March 2002, by clarifying responsibilities and accountabilities within action plans, regularly monitoring progress, and integrating action plans into departmental performance and planning systems.
2. Introduce project management of implementation plans, to improve timeliness and the quality of reporting, understanding and clarity on progress, and delivery of outputs to agreed schedules.
3. Strengthen the process of reporting to the Best Value Committee that has been operating since May 2002 by:

• Performance and Review considering reports before they are finalised.
• Continue to have reviews report on progress until all actions are either completed or discarded with reason.

• It is proposed that the Committee receives three or four updates at each meeting

10. Common themes arising among service-specific recommendations were the need to implement more effective systems for:

• performance management
• communication with the public and other stakeholders
• the use of comparative data in decision-making.

11. Summary

• fewer and broader reviews in the Best Value review programme
• changes to the methodology used for carrying out reviews
• closer focus on performance management
• more attention on implementation.
• This report has outlined some of the specific areas for improvement identified by inspections and proposes actions to address them.

12. RECOMMENDATIONS

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to:

1. note the main findings arising from inspections of best value reviews;
2. approve the proposed actions to address areas for improvement identified, including proposed action under paragraph 6 to improve monitoring of implementation.

STEPHEN CAPALDI
Director for Strategy

Background Papers: Nil

September 2002

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