To receive a presentation from Mr David Scholes, the Chief Executive.
Decision:
This presentation was given during the debate on the Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme (Minute 16 refers).
Minutes:
This presentation was given during the debate on the Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme (Minute 16 refers).
The Chief Executive advised that the starting place for any Overview and Scrutiny and the cascade of documents was the Corporate Vision to make North Hertfordshire a vibrant place for people to live, work and prosper, which was created by the Council and its partners and had been a long held corner stone for the way that the Corporate Plan and objectives were dealt with.
The Corporate Plan normally lasted for five years, this document started to focus in on what the objectives would be for that period. The objectives were reviewed annually and had been amended during the period of the Plan, although not in any major way.
In the past the Corporate Plan had tended to focus on large projects and key long tdeliverables, rather than the business as usual activities that the Council undertook. The projects mentioned in the Plan tended to be the things that people could see happening and those for which the Council had key performance indicators.
It may be that future Corporate Plans included more business as usual work undertaken by the Council, whilst considering the capacity and funding of the organisation.
Service Plans linked in with the Corporate Plan, by identifying which Corporate Objective was being addressed for each action in the Action Plan. If actions were not one of the Corporate Objectives, then it should not be undertaken.
A Member asked whether this happened in Service Plans.
The Chief Executive confirmed that it did. It could be argued that, if objectives were broad enough then anything could be made to fit in with it, however when setting objectives it was a balance between setting snappy objectives that people could identify with and looking at what local authorities do and carrying that forward.
The Action Plans included in the Service Plans generally identified things that were up coming regarding projects or service areas, ongoing work being undertaken in order to deliver something within a particular year or the point that had been reached for something to be delivered in future years. Additionally the Action Plans captured all the business as usual items and identified what the Council would be doing, the quantum associated with that task and any performance targets.
Actions with associated performance targets and progress against key projects were then reported to this and other Committees on a quarterly basis and these reports showed any areas of concern, which meant that there were checks and balances in the monitoring systems.
Service Plans gave some measures regarding the scope of the service, resourcing, service activities and priorities. In some service areas there was a balance between statutory service delivery and discretionary elements, it should be noted that it tended to be the discretionary elements that people liked to see.
The Service Plans also gave a performance profile by looking at the previous year’s performance, how would things be done for the forthcoming year and looked at public perception of the service to see if there were any issues that needed to be addressed.
This was also linked in with any external reviews, audits, public consultations, reviews of decisions.
Also included was a more detailed analysis such as a SWOT analysis, detailed Action Plans, capture of all risks which linked back to Covalent and an Assurance Statement for each service area.