Charnwood Borough Council

How will we manage the performance of our Corporate Plan

The Council has a well developed and embedded performance management framework, which is designed to ensure that the delivery of the Corporate Plan objectives is monitored, and that intervention and appropriate corrective action is taken promptly where required.

Monitoring is undertaken on a quarterly basis and reported in the Charnwood Dashboard. Progress reports are considered by the Council’s senior management team, Lead Cabinet Members and by the Performance Scrutiny Committee.

A ‘Red, Amber, Green’ (RAG) traffic light system is used to highlight performance progress:

The Charnwood Dashboard reports performance against the achievement of key priorities, hot-listed performance indicators, key projects and exception reports from cross cutting strategy action plan monitoring and the operation of partnership performance management mechanisms.

Key Priorities

Each Three Year Priority within the Corporate Plan will be delivered by a programme using the ‘managing successful programmes’ (MSP) methodology. Each of these programmes includes a vision statement which will clearly set out the key improvements and benefits which will be delivered, together with specific targets which can be used to measure success. The programmes will also expand further on the other expected benefits which will be delivered.

The programmes manage their own performance through standard highlight, reporting and control mechanisms. The overall performance for each of the six programmes will be reported in the Charnwood Dashboard through the key indicators identified in the vision, as well as extracting information from the highlight reports on general progress, budgets and risk.

Relevant Cabinet Lead Members are members of the programme boards, but generally not members of project boards.

Performance Indicators

The key National and Business Indicator targets and actions as described in Section 1.1 (Measuring Success) are updated quarterly. However, reporting through the Charnwood Dashboard is on the basis of a ‘Hotlist’ system which focuses corrective action on key areas of under-performance, and to ensure appropriate corrective action is taken. Performance indicators are included in the Hotlist if there is adverse performance which could significantly impact on the Council’s reputation (eg. significant criticism in the local press, loss of public confidence, or adverse comment from the Audit Commission).

All Hotlist items have an associated action plan. The inclusion or removal of items from the Hotlist is decided upon by our senior management team, who receive monthly progress reports on Hotlist items, as well as their being reported through the Charnwood Dashboard.

Performance indicators which are key indicators for a priority programme are not also added to the Hotlist.

Performance management of our business units and services is via ‘Team Dashboards’ which set out the key business indicators and data for each team. Concerns and issues arising from these team Dashboards are only escalated by exception to the senior management team, and the Performance Scrutiny Committee on quarterly basis.

Key Projects

A small number of projects, both within and outside of programmes, are designated as key projects. Progress on these key projects will be reported in the Charnwood Dashboard through the lifetime of the project, based on highlight reports of general progress, budget, milestones and risk.

The criteria for a key project is based on assessment of the importance of the project to mitigating a significant risk to the Council as a whole, from the strategic and operational risk registers described in section 1.2 (Risk Management). Key projects are currently identified by Cabinet, and Cabinet Lead Members may be members of the Project Board.

Cross Cutting Strategies

There are a number of cross cutting strategies, which are managed via action plans, and ownership of these is allocated to a member of the senior management team. Each strategy will be supported by a risk register, which will set out the risks which may impact on the progress of the action plan. These will be monitored by the production of quarterly progress reports, which will provide a commentary on achievement of key actions within the action plan and which will highlight any significant risks to the delivery of the strategy. Should the progress reports indicate that there are significant concerns relating to the progress of, or the risks associated with the strategies, in such cases they would be reported upwards via the Charnwood Dashboard on an exception basis.

Partnership Reporting

Charnwood will contribute to a number of broader partnership initiatives, the principle one being the Local Area Agreement. Separate monitoring mechanisms exist for these initiatives and on an exception basis reports will be made as part of the Charnwood Dashboard.