Contact: Peter Brown, ext 6256

1. Summary

1.1 This report outlines progress made during the last year on the Best Value reviews and Best Value improvement plans of services in the Environment Department. Members are asked to note this progress, and that the outstanding improvement proposals will be incorporated in the new Service Plan regime being developed within the County Council.

2. Information

Best Value Reviews Progress

2.1 March 2003 marks the end of the third full year of the continuous improvement regime established under Best Value. Members will be aware that this regime has been supplemented by the move towards Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPAs), with the first assessment taking place in 2002. Having looked at the County Council's Local Transport Plan, the inspected passenger transport services and performance measures for waste, transport and planning, the Audit Commission concluded that the County Council's environmental services are particularly strong. While the final CPA judgement for the environmental services was a top score of 4 out of 4, it is recognised that opportunities for further improvement remain.

2.2 The identification of the main areas for service improvement has been the main objective of the Best Value review process. Following on from the `Pathfinder' review of Highways Management in 1999/2000, which led to the development of the Highway Agency Blueprint, three full Best Value reviews have been completed on services within the new Environment Department. These are:

(i) Passenger Transport - This review was formally audited by the Audit Commission and found to be a good service with good prospects for improvement.

(iii) Road Safety (including a review of the School Crossings Patrol Service previously undertaken through County Education); and

(iii) Transport Network Improvements (embracing the designing and delivery of the transport capital programme).

The action plans for these three reviews have since continued to be implemented and summaries of progress prepared for the Best Value Performance Plan 2002/03 are attached as an appendix.

2.3 In partnership with Education and Social Services, the Environment Department also made a significant contribution to the cross-cutting review of Passenger Transport which examined the use of the transport services procured by the County Council to facilitate its other front line services. The working group overseeing the development and implementation of the improvement plan has recently been strengthened by the addition of two elected Members, Councillors Knight and Filer, and work on seeking future improvements is continuing with their involvement. The outcomes arising from this review are scheduled to be reported to the Policy and Resources Policy Review Committee in summer 2003.

2.4 One further Environment Department review has continued as part of the Best Value review programme during 2002/03, namely Policy Development. This has now reached the options stage and a full report on its progress is contained in agenda item 9.

2.5 This past year was also scheduled to include a Best Value review of the Environment Department's Development Control Service. This has been replaced by two separate initiatives. The service dealing with highways related development control issues, based within the former County Surveyor's Department, has been the subject of a service review using Best Value principles. A report on the review's scope, which covers highways advice for planning applications, legal agreements and land charge searches, was considered by this Committee on 15 July 2002. This review has been undertaken in close cooperation with the District Councils who have a major stake in any changes to the current delivery arrangements. Following ongoing consultations, the interim conclusions will be reported to the next meeting of this Committee.

2.6 The remainder of the Development Control service, based on the activities within the former County Planning Department, has been the subject of a scoping exercise to consider whether its issues may be best tackled in association with other reviews within the Council. The outcomes from similarly scoped reviews in other councils nationally have since become available through the Audit Commission and the Planning Officers' Society and have provided a ready reference for potential improvement topics. Consequently, a full Best Value review has been deemed by the Corporate Performance Group inappropriate until these options have been explored.

Service Planning

2.7 Although a full five year programme to review all the County Council's services was originally envisaged, the outstanding reviews proposed for years 4 and 5 will be affected by changes to the Best Value regime nationally that propose that Best Value reviews now only be undertaken on strategic, wide cross-topic and sector services. Individual services may be best tackled by a more modest and focussed service based review. Such a system is to be the main purpose of the County Council's proposed `Service Planning' approach which will seek to identify and prioritise operational customer focussed service improvements. This process will be integrated into the County Council's business planning cycle from September 2003 onwards. In the first instance, the new system is being developed using the former County Planning Department's Development Control service as one of the pilot reviews. The proposed preparation service planning process, to be determined in light of the pilot reviews, will be presented to a future meeting of this Committee.

2.8 It is proposed that the new service planning approach will henceforth embrace all County Council services. These new plans will replace, embrace and reprioritise the outstanding Best Value improvement plan proposals from the earlier reviews and include newly identified issues in service areas not previously subject to a Best Value review. By developing an annual review and improvement process for all services it will, therefore, no longer be necessary to report specifically on the outcomes of the past Best Value improvement plans. It is recommended that this Committee agrees to formally close the three aforementioned Best Value review improvement plans and to integrate the outstanding matters in future reports related to service plans for the Environment Department.

2.9 The number and scope of service plans for the Environment Department has yet to be confirmed and will in part depend on the outcomes and evaluation of the pilot reviews. A report on the new process and the options for Member engagement will be the subject of a future report to this Committee.

Recommendation

That the contents of this report be noted.

7818/PNB