Contact: Duncan Savage, Best Value Project Manager, ext 7479

1 Understanding Best Value

1.1 The Chief Executive will make a short presentation to refresh or introduce Members to their Best Value role in the context of Policy Review Committees. Copies of the presentation material will be handed out at the committee meeting.

2 Best Value Programme

2.1 The Best Value Review programme provides a planned approach to reviewing all County Council services over a five year period. The timetable is drawn up according to the impact, value and current performance of the service and availability of resources to carry out a review. The programme was originally approved by the Best Value and Performance Sub-Committee at its meeting on 9 December 1999 and will be kept under review by the Cabinet to ensure it reflects current priorities and learns from reviews undertaken so far.

2.2 The review programme for this Policy Review Committee is included in the presentation material. It will provide a significant part of the workload of the Policy Review Committee.

2.3 Generally each Policy Review Committee will consider the reviews relating their own service areas, with cross-cutting reviews being considered by the Policy & Resources Policy Review Committee. However the programme of reviews does not always give each Policy Review Committee an equal workload, so during 2001/02 this Policy Review Committee has considered two reviews from outside Recreation & Heritage, i.e. Hampshire Transport Management and the Registration Service (both parts of the Property, Business and Regulatory Services Department). The balance of workload for Policy Review Committees during year 3 will be re-assessed this Autumn as part of the regular review of the 5 year review programme.

2.4 A more detailed summary is included (Appendix 1) for the current year (2001/02) to show how Members might be engaged in reviews through formal committee meetings and through informal workshops with officers and other stakeholders. Nominations will be sought at this meeting for a maximum of four Members to work with each of the current year's review teams.

2.5 Year 1 (2000/01) reviews have been completed and summaries of the outcomes have been reported in the Best Value Performance Plan, which was circulated to all County Councillors in April 2001. Printed copies are available for new County Councillors.

2.6 A draft report has been received from the Best Value Inspection Service on the Year 1 review of the Library Service. This will be presented together with recommendations for amendments to the Improvement Plan at a later meeting of the Policy Review Committee. The current position on this inspection is reported in Item 3.

3 Support for Members

3.1 The Best Value process is outlined and supported by considerable detail in the Best Value Step-by-step guide and Toolkit. This is available on Hantsweb (www.hants.gov.uk/bestvalue), where it is regularly updated. A hard copy of the original version is available for new County Councillors.

3.2 The Personnel and Training Section are developing a training programme which includes responsibilities under Best Value.

3.3 The Audit Commission has produced a free booklet titled "Another Step Forward", which provides a useful summary of national expectations in relation to Best Value. A copy will be circulated to each Committee Member at the committee meeting.

Recommendation

1 That the Best Value Review timetable for this committee be noted, in order that Members are aware of the opportunities to be involved in the reviews and in particular to nominate Members to work informally with each of the current year reviews.

Section 100D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NONE

N.B. The list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.