The council quickly introduced a new framework and reporting regime, which has subsequently been implemented across the whole organisation.
An integrated reporting framework (IRF): The council has developed its own in-house IRF which enables officers to monitor many aspects of the council’s delivery and performance. The framework is accessed through a dashboard-based online tool (Power BI) that allows the collection and monitoring of performance data directly from the council’s main business systems and is now used as the main tool for officers to measure progress. The IRF currently collects and monitors information on:
- service performance through a set of agreed performance indicators
- finance overview
- risk management
- contracts and commissioning intentions
- corporate data and intelligence.
The IRF has over 200 performance indicators that officers use to measure council performance – many of these are of a statutory nature and need to be reported to central government. There are also a number of key local indicators which have been developed to allow the council to measure the delivery of services. The data is displayed through a set of dashboards showing service performance, targets, and trends and is updated both directly through online business systems (Liquidlogic, Uniform, and so on) and by manual input.
It is possible for staff to view summaries concurrently. For example, an adult social care quarterly finance overview summary is also available on the adult social care performance dashboard meaning that performance and finance can be viewed together. This means that senior officers can draw conclusions around key aspects of service activity, performance and expenditure and their linkages.
Theme specific dashboards: These add value by pulling together all the relevant information about a topic of significance to the council in one place. For example, a dashboard has been developed for the climate and ecological emergencies policy, which is a core policy for the current administration. All the information about delivering the outcomes of this policy is now accessible to members and staff through this “one stop shop for data” approach. This enables more accurate and faster decision-making
Reporting performance to members: The IRF has over 200 indicators and this is considered far too many to meaningfully report performance to members through the democratic process. Therefore, a smaller strategic set of 22 indicators has been selected to allow members to focus on key areas of delivery, primarily focussing on the delivery of the corporate strategy.
A strategic indicators report is presented to cabinet on a quarterly basis alongside the financial monitoring report, providing cabinet members with a holistic view of finance and performance. The report is currently presented to cabinet in a traditional paper report, but work is underway to consider whether the live Power BI dashboards could be used to present information at future cabinet meetings. The online approach has already been successfully trialled with the corporate scrutiny panel.