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ITEM EX8

EXECUTIVE - 8 JULY 2003

RAISING OUR PERFORMANCE

Report by the Leader of the Council, Deputy Leader of the Council and Chief Executive

Introduction

  1. The Council adopted Raising our Performance as a four year strategic action plan in September 2001. This is our key vehicle for improving the Council’s organisational performance, and it commits us to becoming an outstanding organisation by 2005. Raising our Performance complements the Oxfordshire Plan, which focuses on service performance.

  2. External reviews have since confirmed organisational performance as our principal area of weakness and reinforced the importance of implementing the actions in Raising our Performance. A report on our progress in implementing the twenty actions in Raising our Performance is attached at Annex 1 (download as .doc file).

  3. The Annex also reports on progress against the key findings of the external inspections of the organisation that have occurred since September 2001 and that reinforce the actions in Raising our Performance. These include:

    • A Peer Review organised by the Improvement & Development Agency in October 2001;

    • The Corporate Assessment led by the Audit Commission in May 2002 that forms part of our Comprehensive Performance Assessment.

  1. In addition, we arranged a short review of our progress against the Peer Review recommendations to be carried out by the Improvement & Development Agency in May 2003. Their report is attached at Annex 2.

    2. Summary

  2. It is clear that the Council has made huge strides in improving its organisational performance. The checklist at Annex 1 (download as .doc file).shows major progress against the 20 actions in Raising our Performance and against the supporting recommendations from the Peer Review and Comprehensive Performance Assessment. The first Peer Review report was critical of the Council’s performance, but the recent progress report of May 2003 at Annex 2 summarises the position as follows:

    3. "Since the original review, the Council has made tremendous progress in all of the areas identified for improvement by the review team."

  3. This is a very encouraging finding and the Executive is invited to celebrate the significant progress that has been made.

    4. Progress

  4. Some of the most significant achievements since September 2001 include the following:

    5. What We Stand For

    1. The Council has adopted an overarching aim and objectives. These provide a clear statement of what the Council stands for and a coherent framework to which service and individual priorities can relate. The Council has also adopted a set of values to guide our behaviours, and these are being promoted in the recruitment, training and appraisal of staff.

      2. More Effective Leadership

    2. The political leadership of the authority has been strengthened through the formation of an Executive and a political administration. This has considerably improved the profile and accountability of the authority to stakeholders, media and the public. It has also enabled the Council to increase its influence regionally and to strengthen its relations with bodies such as SEEDA and GOSE. This is also reflected in the Leader’s role as Chairman of the SEERA Regional Planning Committee.

    3. Managerial leadership has been strengthened through major changes to the role of Directors and the make up of the County Council Management Team. A new structure of strategic Directors and Heads of Service has been introduced, with Directors taking on a more corporate leadership role. The new team only came together in April but already the impact of a tightly knit team with a corporate focus is beginning to be felt.

    4. The Council has strengthened its community leadership by establishing a Local Strategic Partnership that is identifying priorities for Oxfordshire and harnessing the energies of partners in support of shared objectives. The Partnership is now well established and independently chaired. Two successful forums have clarified priorities and a Community Strategy is being developed for December 2003. The Deputy Leader represents the County Council on the five District LSPs.

      5. Keeping in Touch

    5. The publication of a County Council magazine has had a major impact on our communications with Oxfordshire residents. The magazine provides an attractive and readable account of the work of the Council, improving understanding of what we do and enhancing accountability. At the same time we have made considerable improvements to the Council’s internet site, and this has attracted a sharp increase in the number of people visiting the site.

      6. Better Ways of Working

    6. Performance management has received a lot of attention in the last two years. We have introduced a performance management framework and put a lot of effort into clarifying priorities, developing robust and realistic target setting and ensuring regular and accurate monitoring data. CCMT and the Executive have a formal process for monitoring the priority targets in the Oxfordshire Plan and performance against Best Value Performance Indicators. Performance management needs further consolidation yet, but the building blocks are clearly in place and achievement of targets set is likely to improve markedly during 2003/04.

    7. Council investment in ICT was previously fragmented. It has now been brought within a clear corporate framework. Underinvestment in certain areas such as Social & Health Care is now being addressed, and this is supporting performance management. Clear corporate leadership has also improved the cost effectiveness of the Council’s investment in this area. In addition the introduction of broadband technology to all schools and libraries is almost complete and is supporting improved performance in these areas.

    8. The last two years have seen a number of improvements to the working environment, both in outlying offices and in central buildings. The refurbishment of the Common Hall has enabled much fuller use to be made of a major facility, while reception areas in the three central buildings have been made much more welcoming for visitors. The introduction of a £100,000 fund has led to a wide range of small scale improvements in offices across the county, making necessary improvements to the working environment of our staff. A wider review of the Council’s property portfolio has now begun and should lead to further improvements and efficiencies.

      9. Making it Happen

    9. We have put in place a financial strategy that will lead to significant improvements in our financial management. This aims to tighten financial control, improve revenue balances, secure efficiencies and enable investment in service priorities. Improved financial management is already evident particularly in Social & Health Care, where problems of overspending have now been brought under control.

  5. This evidence, and the fuller report in Annex 1, (download as .doc file) underpin the conclusion of the I&DeA Peer Review team that the Council has made "tremendous progress". Of course, further work remains to be done in many of these areas to consolidate the progress made, but sound building blocks are now in place. We are confident when the Audit Commission reassesses the Council’s performance under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment it will find the level of performance to be not just Fair but Good or Excellent.

    6. Outstanding Challenges

  6. Despite all these achievements, we are not yet half way through the four year Action Plan, and there remain significant challenges for us to address if we are to achieve our ambition of becoming an outstanding authority. Action is in hand on each of these issues and they form the focus of the work programme for 2003-04 of the County Council Management Team. The following issues will be pursued as priorities in the remaining two years of the Action Plan:

    7. More Effective Leadership

    1. On the political side, Scrutiny has some notable successes to its name and Oxfordshire has been cited in national good practice. Nevertheless it is not yet performing consistently to its full potential and needs to be more focused if it is to exert constructive influence on the Council’s performance. Partly for this reason, as evidenced by a recent Audit Commission report, managers have limited awareness of Scrutiny’s important role. An action plan is being implemented, and the Chief Executive is conducting a further review that will report in the autumn.

    2. On the managerial side, as the Peer Review points out, the responsibility for corporate leadership has now been shouldered by CCMT but needs to be shared more widely, particularly by the new Heads of Service. Senior managers need to be visible and supportive of staff, and to demonstrate greater commitment to communication, to celebrating success, to cross service working and to performance. The management development budget has been strengthened this year in order to help improve the leadership skills of senior managers and CCMT will be working closely with the new Heads of Service as a group.

      3. Keeping in Touch

    3. Local Responsiveness: It is a constant challenge for an organisation of our size and complexity to be responsive to local concerns, many of which cross our service boundaries. As Raising our Performance pointed out, the County Council is often seen as remote and councillors are often not well known in the communities they represent. We have taken a number of actions to address these perceptions. We have greatly improved joint working with district councils, helped by quarterly meetings between Leaders and Chief Executives. Relations with Oxford City Council are now close and constructive, with the two councils working together on projects including the Oxford West End and the European Capital of Culture competition. The publication of a County Council magazine, division visits by the Chief Executive and Directors and the introduction of pilot local area forums jointly with South Oxfordshire District Council have all helped to bring the County Council closer to the communities it serves.

      4. Nevertheless, Oxfordshire lags behind many other authorities that have introduced comprehensive arrangements for local area working, and we need to address this issue with more urgency in the next two years. In addition to reviewing the lessons of the South Oxfordshire pilot, therefore, we should consider extending the bilateral working arrangements we have with the City Council to other district councils and possibly town councils, build more structured working links with district council community strategies, and decide what good practice from other counties should be adopted here.

      Better Ways of Working

    4. Valuing our Staff: Our staff are our most critical resource, yet our track record of investing in them is patchy. We enjoy good employee relations and measure up well on personnel best value performance indicators. Most service areas have now achieved Investor in People accreditation. The recent Job Evaluation has also addressed some anomalies in pay and will help recruitment and retention in certain critical areas, although it has also unsettled some staff by concluding that their pay should be reduced. Nevertheless, we have not addressed many of the principal concerns to emerge from the most recent staff survey or acted on the commitment in Raising our Performance to refresh our Employment Strategy.

      5. We have recently taken some new action. The Director for Resources is consulting on proposals designed to strengthen our performance in areas such as recruitment and retention, staff development, career development and internal communications. A product will be a Human Resources strategy for the whole Council. We have also set up a small, cross service project team to embed the disciplines of the Investor in People standard, which relate to both staff investment and performance, by securing accreditation for Oxfordshire County Council in early 2004. It is important that these actions lead to tangible improvements. As the Peer Review report of May 2003 puts it: "The human resources function needs to do more, more urgently, to address issues of organisational and management development, linked to performance management and appraisal."

    5. Performance Management: While we have taken actions to improve our performance management, we need to consolidate this progress. As has been recognised, we have too many priorities, and these need to be reduced to a level that allows for focus. The Executive has recently proposed a limited number of priorities to inform next year’s budget, and these were endorsed, with some amendment, by County Council. Target setting for the current Oxfordshire Plan is now more robust, and the challenge for 2003/04 is to demonstrate an improved rate of achieving the targets set. The disciplines that have now been introduced will need to be sustained in all parts of the authority.

    6. Customer Service: Raising our Performance committed us to developing a customer service that is reliable and friendly, and to improving ease of access for the public for example through a contact centre approach. Since then we have developed an e-service programme with clear priorities. More important than the technology is the customer service standard that should pervade our work. In order to become more responsive to the people of Oxfordshire that we serve, we need to develop more consistent standards of customer service and different ways of working. A Customer Services Manager is being recruited to lead work in this area and to report to the newly formed Customer Services Board. The Best Value Committee is also set to conduct a review of standards of Customer Service in Environment & Economy that should inform a wider approach.

      7. Making it Happen

    7. Financial Management: The Council’s finances are considerably more stable than they were 18 months ago, and financial control is very much improved in Social & Health Care. This represents a major step forward and has involved determined leadership, both political and managerial. The Financial Strategy now in place should lead to increased balances, tighter financial management in all areas of work, the achievement of efficiencies and other savings and the freeing up of funds to invest in priorities. Key to this will be reviews of our property portfolio and of our procurement practices that are now underway, as well as analysis of our base budget expenditure through the Maximising our Resources programme.

    Nevertheless, there remain outstanding challenges. Balances are improving, but they are still too low and have been criticised by the District Auditor. There is also strong pressure to reduce the rate of increase in council tax, while simultaneously to improve the quality of our services. Implementation of the Financial Strategy is therefore a high priority for the next two years.

    Conclusion

  7. Significant progress has been made in implementing the Raising our Performance Action Plan and the recommendations of the Peer Review Report and the Comprehensive Performance Assessment. The actions listed at paragraph 9 above should be the focus of organisational development over the next two years. It is therefore proposed that from now on progress reports to the Executive should concentrate on these items, and that an up-to-date publication – Raising our Performance II - should be prepared for the autumn that will review progress and set renewed challenges to the organisation

    8. RECOMMENDATIONS

    The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

          1. note and celebrate the progress made in implementing the Raising our Performance Action Plan;

          2. note the report on the County Council’s progress submitted by the Improvement & Development Agency and thank the Peer Review team for their constructive advice;

          3. endorse the priorities for further improvement at paragraph 9 of the report as a focus for the work of the County Council Management Team and commission a further progress report in 6 months’ time that focuses on these areas;

          4. commission a new publication for autumn 2003 that will report on progress with the implementation of Raising our Performance and set renewed challenges for organisational improvement in Oxfordshire County Council.

KEITH R MITCHELL
Leader of the Council

MARGARET GODDEN
Deputy Leader of the Council

RICHARD SHAW
Chief Executive

Background Papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Richard Shaw, Tel 01865 815330

June 2003

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