Contact: Jenny Heath, 01962 847402; [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 The following decisions are sought:

· That the summary of progress with the Hampshire Improvement Programme for 2003/04 is noted.

· That the wider summary of progress against all corporate aims, reported in the Performance Plan, is noted.

· That Cabinet receive a further report on progress with corporate aims, coupled with responses to audit and inspection recommendations, timed to inform the 2004 CPA refresh exercise and linked to regular performance reporting.

· That proposals are developed to prepare the Council for the full CPA exercise and revision of the Corporate Assessment in 2006.

2 Reasons for the recommendations

· Monitoring progress with the improvement programme is good practice in relation to the Audit Commission's Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) improvement reporting exercise. This in turn supports the Corporate Strategy aim 5: improving services, specifically in relation to the priority area: `ensure the County Council is judged as high performing'.

3 Other options considered and rejected

None

4 Conflicts of interest declared by the decision maker, or member or officer consulted

None

5 Dispensation granted by the Standards Committee

Not applicable

6 Reason for matter being dealt with, if urgent

Not applicable

Approved by: Date:

7 Purpose of the report

7.1 This report informs the Cabinet of progress with the (CPA) Hampshire Improvement Programme, since the last update on 15 December 2003.

7.2 The report also provides an outline of how future progress reports will be incorporated in the developing system for performance monitoring and how this approach will help the Council to prepare for the next major CPA Corporate Assessment in 2006.

8 The Hampshire Improvement Programme

8.1 On the basis of the Council's excellent status and self-awareness of areas that needed developing, the improvement programme was developed in 2002 to reflect existing or planned activities. These were clustered into priority areas - seven reflecting community based priorities and four reflecting infrastructure priorities:

· Improved educational achievement for children at risk of social exclusion

· An integrated approach with NHS, housing and the voluntary sector to meet the needs of older people

· Natural Resource Initiative

· Reducing congestion and pollution on roads

· Keeping traffic safely on the move

· Increasing community engagement and access to public services

· Working with young people

· Ensuring high quality staff are in place to deliver quality services

· Development of Member scrutiny role

· Development of performance management

· Development of ICT infrastructure

8.2 Cabinet agreed in December 2003 that the Hampshire Improvement Programme would be integrated into the revision of the Corporate Strategy, to avoid maintaining separate streams of activity. This has been achieved for 2004/05 and means that future progress reports will be combined with reporting progress with the Corporate Strategy targets.

9 Progress with the Hampshire Improvement Programme during 2003/04

9.1 The 2003 CPA self-assessment reflected the first half year reports on progress with the individual projects which support the above priorities. This report is based on the first full year reports for 2003/04 and appendix 1 provides a summary of progress against each of the projects associated with the 11 priorities.

10 Regular performance monitoring

10.1 As one of only two statutory plans an excellent council has to publish, the Performance Plan has a growing significance in providing evidence of the Council's ability and level of performance. The plan must become the end product of processes to set key targets at all levels of the organisation and monitor progress against them. Analysis of these results and extracting key issues or significant variations from original targets results in the form of self-assessment that is fundamental to the CPA.

10.2 Production of the performance plan - and the half yearly CPA data refresh - must be underpinned by a sound performance management framework, which provides evidence of how performance information is being used to drive forward improvement, take remedial action when necessary and ensure accountability and ownership for delivering service improvements.

10.3 Work has begun across the authority identifying key strategic and operational outcomes that management teams will monitor and report on. The process relies on a selective approach, extracting key issues, problem areas or significant achievements that should be reported upwards, rather than attempting to collate a complete set of data that would overwhelm any recipient. The end result will be a report to Cabinet on a half yearly basis, starting this autumn, providing information on progress with key corporate objectives and projects.

10.4 Appendix 2 extracts the summaries of progress against the aims in the corporate strategy for 2003/04. These are an integral part of this year's performance plan update. Together with updates on responses to audit and inspection recommendations, further half-year reports for 2004/05, these statements will form the basis of the 2004 CPA self-assessment, to be given to the auditor in the autumn.

11 CPA 2005 and beyond

11.1 The Audit Commission has published its outline approach to the major revision of the CPA model from 2005 in its document CPA 2005 - The New Approach. The Council had responded to consultation on this approach in February 2004. There are no significant surprises in the final document and it is pleasing to note that some proposals for amendment put forward by the Council have been incorporated. Further consultation is expected in the autumn on the detail of the model and how it will be implemented.

11.2 The essential format of the CPA model, with the two elements of a corporate assessment and service judgements will remain the same. The new model will take effect from 2005, but because of the Council's excellent status it will not receive its corporate assessment until 2006.

11.3 There are many factors which combine to achieve a successful CPA result and the new model will be testing some areas of activity which are particularly tricky to measure, such as community leadership and successful partnering. It is suggested that in the first instance the officer Corporate Performance Steering Group develop proposals for the full CPA exercise and revision of the Corporate assessment in 2006.

Recommendations

1 That the summary of progress for 2003/04 with the Hampshire Improvement Programme be noted (Appendix 1).

2 That the wider summary of progress against all corporate aims, reported in the Performance Plan, is noted (Appendix 2).

3 That Cabinet receive a further report on progress against corporate objectives and responses to audit and inspection recommendations, timed to inform the 2004 CPA refresh exercise and linked to regular performance reporting.

4 That proposals are developed to prepare the Council for the full CPA exercise and revision of the Corporate Assessment in 2006.

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.