Hampshire County Council

Best Value Performance Plan 2002- 2003

Best Value - providing you with quality services that you want, at a price you are willing to pay.

Contents

SECTION 1 - INTRODUCTION

Hampshire - Your County. Your Council.

Cllr Ken Thornber, Leader of the County Council

Working Harder for Hampshire.

Peter Robertson, Chief Executive, Hampshire County Council

Contacts for more information

About this plan

Crime and disorder and community safety

E-government

Equalities

Sustainable development

SECTION 2 - AN OVERVIEW OF THE COUNCIL'S PERFORMANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COMMUNITY OF HAMPSHIRE

Context

What is the Council trying to achieve?

How has the Council set about delivering its potential for improvement?

What has the Council achieved / not achieved to date?

In the light of what the Council has learnt to date, what does it plan to do next?

Key Actions

SECTION 3 - THE BEST VALUE REVIEW PROGRAMME

Development of the Best Value review programme

The five -year Programme of Best Value Reviews

Best Value Review Outcomes - Year 2

Progress on Implementing Improvements arising from Year 1 Best Value Reviews

SECTION 4 - PERFORMANCE MEASURES

Local Performance Indicators

National Performance Indicators

SECTION 1 - INTRODUCTION

Hampshire - Your County. Your Council

This Best Value Performance Plan (2002-03) shows that our aims for Hampshire are high. Our priority is to provide high quality services with sound finance at a relatively low cost to the Council Tax payer of Hampshire. This we will strive to achieve, but increasingly it is clear that we cannot achieve it on our own. That is why we have set up `Local Strategic Partnerships' with the district councils, the voluntary sector, the business community and other organisations to respond to your views, target your priorities and meet local needs. I hope after reading this Plan you feel more informed about the targets we are setting for ourselves and the ways we are working to achieve them.

Cllr Ken Thornber, Leader of the County Council

Working Harder for Hampshire

Inspection is a feature of modern government and 2001/02 has seen visits from Ofsted, the Social Services Inspectorate and Best Value Inspectors. The District Auditor highlighted these reviews in his annual report and concluded that `this has been another successful year for the Council'. Now in 2002/03 we are responding to the Government's requirement for a Corporate Performance Assessment. This will be an external validation of Hampshire's current performance and its capacity to improve.

In addition, to work even harder for Hampshire, we have also signed up to a `Public Service Agreement' with the Government starting in April 2002. This three-year agreement will help us to make improvements to services for the most vulnerable groups in Hampshire, in the areas which need most help, by focusing our efforts more effectively and seeking countywide improvements to standards and services.

Peter Robertson, Chief Executive, Hampshire County Council

CONTACTS FOR MORE INFORMATION

Information Centres

Information Centres provide easy local access to information about public services provided by Hampshire County Council and other organisations.

· Visit an information centre at:

· Winchester - top of the High Street by the Westgate

· Basingstoke - next to the library in the shopping centre

· Waterlooville - in the library

· Farnborough - in the library


· Telephone Information Centre staff on the Freefone number: 0800 028 0888. Lines are open 8.30am to 7.00pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 8.30am to 5.30pm Wednesdays and 9.30am to 4pm Saturdays.

· Free text phone line is available on 0808 100 2484 for customers with hearing or speech difficulties.


· Send an e-mail to: [email protected]

Local Information Points (LIPs)

The council delivers local services through a network of over 5000 buildings, including Social Services Area Offices, Libraries and Schools, as well as in partnership with other organisations. Many of these sites have been designated Local Information Points, where

leaflets and information are held to answer the most commonly made enquiries. Telephone 0800 028 0888 to find out the nearest LIP address.

Website

Visit the website at www.hants.gov.uk/bestvalue

Other formats

The text of the plan can be requested in large print, as an audiocassette, in Braille, or in another language, on request.

Other local authorities

Local government services in Hampshire are provided by a number of local authorities and each of these is required to publish a Best Value Performance Plan. The Information Centres are able to provide guidance on which authority or organisation to contact.

Comments on this Best Value Performance Plan

Write to Jenny Heath, Corporate Performance Manager, Hampshire County Council, The Castle, Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 8UJ.

Complaints

Comments and suggestions about services are welcomed. The council aims to deliver high quality, accessible services but recognises that sometimes things go wrong and will do its best to make amends. Copies of the formal complaints procedure are

available from the Information Centres, Local Information Points and on the website.

ABOUT THIS PLAN

What is Best Value?

The Local Government Act 1999 conferred a duty on all local authorities to deliver Best Value across all services. Best Value is defined as delivering economy, efficiency and effectiveness to secure continuous service improvement, or more simply "providing the quality services you want at a price you are willing to pay".

To achieve this each authority must:

· review all its activities over a five year period

· challenging what is done and why it is done

· consulting with service users and other interested parties

· comparing performance with others

· competing to find the best service provider

· report by 30 June each year on its performance against national performance measures

· plan for the future:

· implementing outcomes of reviews which deliver continuous improvements to services

· setting challenging performance targets for the future

Hampshire County Council's Best Value Performance Plan

Best Value is welcomed as a framework for managing performance and delivering improvements to services. To meet the needs of a variety of audiences it is published in a number of ways, although they all follow the structure of the five aims of the Corporate Strategy.

This full version

This document collates information from a wide range of sources to provide a useful, single reference point for key information about the County Council's vision and objectives, its current performance and its plans to review and improve services.

Section 2 of this Plan provides an overview of Performance. The outcomes of Year 2 Best Value reviews are summarised in Section 3, together with progress reports from Year 1 Best Value Reviews. Performance measures are detailed in Section 4.

The plan is available in all Libraries, Information Centres, Local Information Points and on request. It is circulated to all County Councillors, senior County Council staff, key partners in business and in the voluntary and community sectors and to colleagues in other local authorities.

The summary version

The summary version of this plan is called "Delivering Best Value? Our services under the microscope" and has been sent to every home in Hampshire with the County Council's magazine Hampshire Now.

Every effort has been made to ensure copies are reliably distributed but to make sure they are easily available copies are also held in libraries, information centres, local information points and on the website. Press releases and the Council Tax leaflet are being used to draw people's attention to the opportunities to obtain the information.

The web version

The content of the full and summary versions is available on the County Council's website, Hantsweb, and on the intranet site, Hantsnet 2000, for staff use.

Links to other plans

Community Strategy

The Local Government Act 2000 conferred a new duty on County and District Councils to develop Community Strategies in partnership with the wider community in their areas. This is part of the government's modernisation agenda, linked to the new power to `promote economic, social and environmental well-being'. Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) are being established in each district across the county to develop these community strategies, involving members from both tiers of local government plus representatives of the public, private, voluntary and community sectors. Additionally, a county level partnership will be set up to develop a community strategy for Hampshire, looking at strategic issues which operate beyond district boundaries.

Corporate Vision

Members have agreed their "Vision for Hampshire'. This sets the aspirations which drive the County Council's policies and service delivery in a broad context which can be related to those of other organisations in the community planning process.

Corporate Strategy

The Corporate Strategy provides the framework which translates the Corporate Vision into action, moving the County Council from its present position to where it wants to be.

Five key aims provide the focus for all County Council activities:

· Maximising life opportunities

· Achieving Economic Prosperity

· Building Strong and Safe Communities

· Stewardship of the Environment

· Improving Services and Supporting Staff

The Corporate Strategy identifies desired outcomes and the actions needed to achieve them. It includes local performance indicators which measure the current level of achievement and projects future targets. The Best Value Performance Plan provides an annual snapshot of progress with the actions agreed and the standard of performance measured by the performance indicators.

A range of "sub-strategies define policy and provide guidance on activities which cut across service or departmental boundaries. The current suite of sub-strategies are:

· Personnel and Training

· Health and Safety

· Development and Training

· Performance Development

· Communications

· IT2000

· Equalities

· Sustainable Development

· Water

· Urban Living

Departmental and service (business) plans

The County Council's services are delivered through eight departments:

Chief Executive's Department

County Treasurer's Department

Education Department

Environment Grouping

Personnel and Training Department

Property, Business and Regulatory Services

Recreation and Heritage Department

Social Services Department

Each of these departments produce departmental plans, which co-ordinate and prioritise the development of the services they manage, while integrating them with the overall aims of the corporate strategy. In turn, service managers produce service or business plans for the people, money and other resources they manage. As well as developing services, these also serve to maintain the quality of the vast range of day-to-day activities provided by the County Council.

Individual or team action plans

Individual action plans ensure staff are clear about their personal or team targets and how they contribute to service and departmental plans. The Investors in People initiative is a key factor in applying best practice across the County Council and is targeted for completion by July 2002.

Statutory plans

The Government requires local authorities to develop certain plans in support of its own national objectives. These include:

· Local Transport Plan

· County Structure Plan

· Education Development Plan

· Behaviour Support Plan

Key Strategic Areas

Four strategic areas have been singled out for attention because of their importance to national policy or to local communities:

· Crime, disorder and community safety

· Sustainable development

· Equalities

· E-government

Crime and Disorder and Community Safety

Crime, disorder and community safety is one of the main priorities of the key aim of the corporate strategy, building safe and strong communities.

Legislation sets out the County Council's duty to work in partnership with District Councils and the Police to produce local strategies to deal with crime and community safety in district areas. This work is well established, with a senior manager nominated as the main contact point for each local partnership, whose responsibility it is to ensure the council contributes to projects at an operational level. New Strategies were published in April 2002.

Many of the issues that lie behind criminal and anti-social behaviour are very closely associated with the main concerns of the County Council:

l providing good quality education and preparing young people for adult life

l protecting vulnerable people

l providing a safe environment and encouraging communities to support themselves.

For this reason, as well as playing a full part as a statutory partner in local partnership strategies, the County Council has adopted its own crime and disorder and community safety strategy. The six key policy aims focus on:

l reducing exclusions and truancy and supporting learning

l diversionary activities for young people

l supporting community projects

l enhancing local employment prospects

l planning and environmental management to support safer communities

l youth offending.

These policy aims underpin the corporate strategy and are being built into departmental service plans. The legislation imposes a duty, under Section 17, for the council to consider the impact of crime and disorder on all its services. This will be done through implementing and monitoring the council's community safety strategy and through all Best Value reviews.

Second year Best Value Reviews continue to show that a wide range

of service areas can make a contribution to promoting community

safety and reducing crime. These include:

. support for looked after children through improved services

. introduction of Personal Education Plans to reduce days of schooling that are missed.

. foster care for young people remanded from courts which has reduced re-offending rates

. support to schools and to governors to reduce exclusions and help with behavioural problems

. improved sustainability of transport capital works

. the registration service developing on line registration and availability of electronic information to prevent illegal use of certificates

e-government

Like other councils in England, Hampshire County Council submitted a statement to the Government on how we plan to meet the Prime Minister's target for all services to be available electronically by 2005. You can find this "Implementing Electronic Government" (IEG) statement on our website (http://www.hants.gov.uk/egovernment) , and we're always grateful for comments.

This past year's round of Best Value reviews has identified a number of e-government initiatives to be taken, although several of them will take a little while to come through. The Registration Service, for instance, is keen to get more of its forms online, but has some tricky issues to resolve because of a legal requirement for signatures. Hampshire Governor Services, on the other hand, already have most of their information and forms for school governors online at their website (http://www.hants.gov.uk/education/governors/).

There's been considerable progress in two of our main objectives - to improve the service we provide to people who phone the County Council and to develop a comprehensive online catalogue of services.

Our pilot out of hours contact centre for Social Services (Social Services Direct) is now up and running, and answering enquiries in the evenings and at weekends. (tel. 0845 600 45 55) Work is under way to see how we can build on what we've learned from Social Services Direct and extend the principles to Social Services in the daytime, and to other County Council services. If you'd like to know a little of the background of the project, you can find more information on our website (http://www.hants.gov.uk/TC/socialservices/direct.html).

The first draft of our new catalogue of services is now published on our website (http://services.hants.gov.uk). This first version is far from complete, but has been put in place largely so we can get feedback from people using it. Over the coming months, the depth and range of information in the catalogue will be improved, and electronic forms will be added for many of the services. We're also working with district councils and other agencies to incorporate comprehensive information about their services. It should be said that while people using the Internet to find out about services will benefit from direct use of the catalogue, it will also serve as a primary source of information for people in our Information Centres and Local Information Points when you call them with an enquiry (tel: 0800 028 0888).

In the meantime, consultation has begun, particularly through the "Hampshire Listens" panel of residents, to see how you would like to see e-government and modern technology used to improve the way we deliver services. Again, we'd welcome your comments and suggestions.

Equality of opportunity

For several years the County Council has committed itself to a policy of equality of opportunity, which is captured in the following extract from its policy statement:

"The County Council is committed to securing genuine equality of opportunity, whether required by law or not, in all aspects of its activities as an employer and service provider.

As well as accepting its responsibilities under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, together with all related legislation, the County Council is committed to the broad principles of social justice. The County Council confirms that equality extends to all the services it provides as well as its employment policies and practices.

The County Council recognises that passive policies will not reverse discrimination and disadvantage. So it will actively seek to redress unfair discrimination against disadvantaged people to ensure equality of opportunity. It will work to encourage and assist disadvantaged groups or individuals, creating a fair basis from which equality of opportunity can operate.

All sections of the population will have equal access to jobs and services offered by the County Council and no person will have less favourable treatment than others because of gender, disability, age, ethnic or national origin, marital status, religious creed, sexuality or responsibility for dependants."

While an organisation's approach to equalities may be visible through its equalities policies, strategies and procedures, making equalities a meaningful part of the organisation's culture is harder to achieve. The success of these initiatives may be measured in a number of ways:

· The perceptions of staff and customers

· Comparison with national standards and targets

· Analysis of the effectiveness of Best Value Reviews in delivering outcomes which support or improve equality of opportunity

· Progress with departmental action plans based on the corporate equalities plan

· Development and progress with a Race Equality Scheme.

Year 2 Reviews have shown a greater awareness of the link between equalities and providing a quality service. An assessment framework has been designed which will assist reviews to identify performance against equalities indicators. This has been used successfully and is now recommended for future reviews.

Sustainable Development

In February 2001, the County Council approved a new policy framework and guidelines to help it achieve sustainable development - meeting the needs of the present without compromising the interests of future generations - through:

· protecting and improving the environment

· ensuring we don't waste natural resources; and

· creating a more inclusive society where everyone shares the benefits of increased economic prosperity.

This framework commits the Council to deliver its services in a sustainable way thus setting a good example to the rest of the community as a service provider, consumer and major employer. This also complements the role of working with the community to secure a sustainable Hampshire and supports the development of community strategies in partnership with the district councils.

The Best Value initiative offers an excellent means of identifying the ways in which we can integrate the principles of sustainable development into the way we undertake our duties and the outcomes we deliver. Consequently, during the past year, our review teams have explored how the 12 themes identified in our Corporate Sustainable Development Strategy are relevant to improving their services.

The 12 themes are

· Community Co-operation

_ Water Air and Soil

_ Shaping our surroundings

_ Biodiversity

_ Waste

_ Purchasing and procurement

_ Crime and Disorder

_ Improving health and social well being

_ Social inclusion

_ Developing a sustainable local economy

_ Travel and Transport

_ Climate change and energy use

Sustainability related improvements incorporated into the Best Value outcome reports from the 2001-2 reviews include

· E-government measures to reduce the overall level of travel required to deliver or access our services

· Providing better information on how to access more environmentally friendly products and services

· Improving the way we conduct our consultations with the public on transport improvements and finding means to provide better feedback

· Enhancing the links and integration between the wide range of County Council services in order to complement and improve delivery methods and service standards

· Developing means to better assess long term financial implications which may fall on future generations in the wider Hampshire community

· Identifying means to improve efficiency and reduce waste in the use of natural resources.

Measures to improve sustainability considerations in the next tranche of reviews have also been explored and are currently being developed through the Council's involvement in an IDeA / LGA Pathfinder project examining best practice in integrating sustainable development into Best Value.

Other improvements and initiatives have been instigated to improve the sustainability of our services. Some of the key Sustainable Development achievements during 2001/2 include

· All the Council's department have produced action plans, with over 700 ideas in total, to improve sustainability performance during 2002/3. These plans include commitments to reduce energy and resource use.

· Over a quarter of the Council's electricity consumption is now purchased from `Green' energy generation sources.

· Over 250 of our Winchester based staff are taking part in Green Travel Plan incentives to encourage alternatives to commuting by car.

· Setting up a Natural Resource Initiative in partnership with other business and community groups (see Page....). This includes actions by the County Council such as to establish new road maintenance methods with reduced waste and toxic impacts.

· The convening of three Down to Earth conferences leading to the preparation of a Hampshire input to the World Summit in Johannesburg in 2002.

· Amended our financial regulations to allow for the consideration of wider sustainability benefits for the community rather than just lowest cost price.

· Developed and confirmed guidance to make more effective use of old and redundant IT equipment.

· The purchase of hybrid fuel car for trials in the Council's vehicle fleet.