A revised performance management framework (PMF)
The council's revised performance management framework (PMF) was developed by a cross-party scrutiny 'task and finish' group which acted as a member steering group – supported by officers and an independent expert from the Local Government Association. The PMF was introduced alongside the new council plan in early 2020. The steering group received high-level training in performance management techniques and reviewed good practice before establishing a set of principles for good performance management. The principles focus on:
- alignment to council priorities and services
- accountability of the portfolio holder and lead director
- driving improvement
- a joined up approach
- robust data quality
- comparison
- intelligent target-setting.
With the principles agreed, the team developed a reporting framework and mechanisms for driving improvement. For example, scrutiny is asked to consider areas of under-performance for inclusion in their workplans or as the focus of a ‘scrutiny in a day’ workshop. These workshops bring interested scrutiny members together with data and key officers to better understand current performance and improvement activity and make further recommendations.
Selecting measures
Officers worked with service leads, directors and lead members to propose measures, develop the rationale for their inclusion in the PMF and set targets for four years. These proposals were reviewed and challenged by the scrutiny task group, which considered whether the proposed targets achieved the appropriate balance between ambition and realism. The recommendations of the 'task and finish' group and the PMF were presented to cabinet for approval in March 2020, resulting in a set of 78 agreed indicators.
Annual review
A clear annual review process was agreed to ensure that the framework remains ambitious, realistic, and appropriate. The process involves officers working with portfolio-holders to review the measures and targets in light of policy developments, national and regional benchmarks, recent performance and the wider context – and then developing proposals. All proposed changes are considered by scrutiny as part of year-end performance reporting, with scrutiny recommendations, proposals and the year-end performance report then going to cabinet for a decision.
Presenting the information
The insight and intelligence team worked to create a visual, interactive performance dashboard using Microsoft Power BI –to brief councillors, senior officers and internal management meetings on performance. Findings are then published on the council’s website. The dashboard draws on data and commentary added, via Microsoft SharePoint, by officers from across the council.
Due to the potential difficulties of discussing an interactive dashboard in a committee setting, visuals from the dashboard are then copied into a static appendix that is used in committee reporting. This also provides a detailed record of historic performance. While the live dashboard shows trends in performance it only reports quarterly figures for the current year and performance commentary for the current period.