Local Government Benchmarking Framework 2020/21 - Analysis and Commentary
Argyll and Bute Council · 23 June 2022
Back to Audit and Scrutiny Committee — 23 June 2022 and its agenda
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ARGYLL AND BUTE COUNCIL AUDIT AND SCRUTINY COMMITTEE CUSTOMER SUPPORT SERVICES 23 JUNE 2022 LOCAL GOVERNMENT BENCHMARKING FRAMEWORK 2020/21 – ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY 1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.1 This paper presents the final Local Government Benchmarking Framework (LGBF) 2020/21 data for Argyll and Bute which includes our ‘How We Performed’ and ‘Expected Future Performance and Impact of Policy Decisions’ commentary from Heads of Service. It is recommended that the Audit and Scrutiny Committee: 1.2 Considers the contents of the report for scrutiny activity and performance reporting purposes. 1.3 Notes that the completed LGBF 2020/21 is published on our website as part of the Council’s statutory Public Performance Reporting duty.
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ARGYLL AND BUTE COUNCIL AUDIT AND SCRUTINY COMMITTEE CUSTOMER SUPPORT SERVICES 23 JUNE 2022 LOCAL GOVERNMENT BENCHMARKING FRAMEWORK (LGBF) 2020/21 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY 2.0 INTRODUCTION 2.1 This paper presents a selection of indicators from the Local Government Benchmarking Framework (LGBF) 2020/21 and the Council’s performance. 2.2 The indicators for analysis have been identified by the Executive Management Team (ELT) for analysis. The analysis includes ‘How We Performed’ and ‘Expected Future Performance and Impact of Policy Decisions’ commentary from Heads of Service. The completed LGBF 2020/21 is published on our website as part of the Council’s statutory Public Performance Reporting duty. 3.0 RECOMMENDATIONS It is recommended that the Audit and Scrutiny Committee: 3.1 Considers the contents of the report for scrutiny activity and performance reporting purposes; 3.2 Notes that the completed LGBF 2020/21 is published on our website as part of the Council’s statutory Public Performance Reporting duty. 4.0 DETAIL 4.1 All Scottish Councils participate in the Local Government Benchmarking Framework (LGBF) which is managed and produced by the Improvement Service (IS). The purpose of the LGBF is to improve performance through Benchmarking and sharing good practice between councils. 4.2 The final data is normally received at the end of March / early April each year. There are some indicators for which there is no data available yet and these are listed at the end of Appendix 1. These have been removed from the report and will be reported once they are available. The available data has been analysed and is now presented in a more user friendly way. It should be noted that the base year differs for some indicators.
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4.3 The Framework consists of 101 indicators which includes an additional 4 indicators included this year to cover Economic Development and Child Poverty. The data is collected through various means during the year. For example directly to the IS, CIPFA, the Scottish Government or the Scottish Household Survey (SHS). Many of the indicators have data from 2010/11. 4.4 The LGBF is a key element of our Performance and Improvement Framework (PIF). The PIF enables the Council to deliver its statutory duty to ‘make arrangements to secure Best Value (continuous improvement in the performance of functions)’ as required by the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003. In the past the LGBF has been criticised for using measures that many councils felt were not relevant, or the SHS size was too small a sample. We actively engage with the IS and other Scottish Councils to improve and strengthen the measures to support a more strategic use of the LGBF and for the framework to be more outcome focused. 4.5 Geography and demography impact on indicators in a variety of ways. For some we recognise we cannot change the performance and will always be for example, high in cost, which in turn impacts on the performance of particular LGBF indicators, such as the cost of primary and secondary school pupils. However, the indicators that we can influence through improvements and those that matter to our communities have been identified for detailed analysis and are directly mapped to our Corporate Outcomes. 4.6 To help put performance into context and support improvement the LGBF groups Councils with similar characteristics into two sets of Family Groups The characteristics for Family Groups are the type of population that they serve (e.g. relative deprivation and affluence) and the type of area in they cover (e.g. urban, semi-rural, rural). The two sets of Family groups are centred around: People’s Services: Children; Social Work and Housing. Corporate Services: Environment; Culture & Leisure, Economic Development; Corporate and Property. Our membership of these two sets of family groups are different. Within People's Services we are part of a family group with: Angus; East Lothian; Highland; Midlothian; Moray; Scottish Borders; Shetland. Within Corporate Services we are part of a family group with: Aberdeenshire; Dumfries and Galloway; Eilean Siar; Highland; Orkney Islands; Scottish Borders; Stirling. 4.7 In January 2022 the ELT identified 61 indicators for analysis. Analysis was performed on 47 indicators as data was not available for 14 of the identified indicators. Where possible these have been linked by subject matter. Analysis has been performed on our Family Group of councils and are presented in Appendix 1 by Corporate Outcome in the following order: People Live Active, Healthier And Independent Lives Children And Young People Have The Best Possible Start
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Education, Skills And Training Maximise Opportunities For All Our Economy Is Diverse And Thriving We Have An Infrastructure That Supports Sustainable Growth Getting It Right Currently there are no indicators aligned to the Corporate Outcome People Will Live In Safer And Stronger Communities. This mapping is part of our performance improvement activity, which seeks to better align the measures that we report on for scrutiny purposes to our Corporate Outcomes. The full list of LGBF 2020/21 indicators is presented in Appendix 2. It should be noted that the order of presentation is that of the LGBF and not by Corporate Outcome. 4.8 Some of the LGBF indicators are used strategically in our Service Plans and Scorecards while others are used operationally for Benchmarking. Going forward some indicators will be used as Corporate Outcome Indicators (COIs). The following LGBF indicators are currently used within our Service Plans and therefore directly mapped to our Corporate Outcomes. CHN 21: Participation Rate for 16-19-year olds CORP 8: Percentage of invoices sampled that were paid within 30 days CORP ASSET 1: Proportion of operational buildings that are suitable for their current use ENV 7b: % of adults satisfied with street cleaning services CORP 7: Percentage of income due from Council Tax received by the end of the year However, we do not just use the LGBF to monitor and present our performance or aid our improvement journey. It is important to note that other indicators which are similar to those in the LGBF are used and mapped to our Corporate Outcomes, for example: RIS113_02: The percentage of roads in need of maintenance as defined by the annual survey. (This captures and presents the overall condition of all our road network). RIS114_02: The number of tonnes of waste sent to landfill. (This captures all landfill waste, not just domestic) EDU106_01: Increase positive destinations for our looked after children in Argyll and Bute. (We work to ensure that our looked after young people have the best transitions possible to equip them for post school life). 4.9 The LGBF uses a rank structure to illustrate performance, from 1st to 32nd with the Scotland average also shown. The rank structure should only be used in context of the actual performance. For example, our performance may have improved but our rank position has worsened, this can occur if other Councils have also improved. The rank structure is not made public by the Improvement Service,
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therefore this approach has been maintained for the purposes of this report. 4.10 To illustrate our performance for all of the LGBF indicators analysis by quartile has been performed on 84 indicators within the LGBF that there is data for. This is excluding the 6 Housing and 11 indicators with no data. This is presented as follows: Table 1. Presents analysis of 84 indicators by quartile and as a percentage. Table 2. Presents our performance over the past 5 years of the LGBF analysis by quartile as a percentage. It should be noted that the LGBF dataset has grown over the years and for the 2020/21 dataset there are 11 indicators that have no data. Although a direct year-on-year comparison cannot be made it provides an indication of our performance. 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 Quartile 1 13% 17% 22% 17% 21% Quartile 2 28% 22% 18% 31% 26% Quartile 3 28% 18% 24% 25% 23% Quartile 4 32% 42% 36% 27% 30% Table 3. Presents our past 5 years of LGBF performance by quartile as above as a simple trend line. 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 Quartile 1 Quartile 2 Quartile 3 Quartile 4 4.11 To further help present a simple overview of our performance over the past years’ Quartiles have been combined to present the trend in our performance by the Top 50% of performance and the Bottom 50% of performance. 84 Indicators Quartile 1 (Best) 21% Quartile 2 26% Quartile 3 23% Quartile 4 30%
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As can be seen in Table 4 the percentage of all indicators within the top two quartiles over the past 5 years has improved, while the percentage of all indicators within the bottom two quartiles has decreased. This aligns with the Council’s approach to focussing on our priorities. Table 4. Illustrates overall trend in performance for Quartiles 1&2 combined and Quartiles 3&4 combined over the past 5 years. 4.12 HROD have analysed the data, which is presented in the ‘How We Performed’ section. Rather than simply analyse the data Heads of Service have added narrative that helps us understand future performance. This is presented in the ‘Expected Future Performance and Impact of Policy Decisions’. The Head of Service narrative can put into perspective some of the challenges and achievements that have occurred, align policy decisions to performance and any expected impact on delivery which helps address the findings from Audit Scotland in our recent Best Value 3 audit. 4.13 Points for noting that relate to the complete LGBF 2020/21 report are: The Mid-Year Population Estimates (MYE) used for this LGBF 2020/21 report are 2020. For 2020 MYE for Argyll and Bute was 85,430 Detailed analysis was performed on the reduced suite of indicators from our Family Group and Scotland rather than all Scottish Councils. We are not reporting the indicator Rankings. This is in line with the Improvement Service practice whereby they do not publish the Ranking data. Of the 101 indicators in total in the LGBF, 6 refer to Housing which we do not submit data for; due to Covid – or changes in methodology current data is not available for 11 other indicators. Where these are for indicators identified for analysis this is noted individually. Of the indicators identified for detailed analysis five are survey satisfaction measures. This Data comes from the Scottish Household Survey. The surveys cover a mixture of periods varying from a 3 year period to annual however, for most indicators the period is 2017-20. The data is a rolling 3-year average with a 5.5% confidence tolerance. Due to a change in methodology there is no satisfaction data available. However, the sample and response sizes are both very small, this should be borne in mind when reviewing the LGBF satisfaction results. To complement these findings a local survey is planned for 2022/23. The findings will be presented once available.
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4.14 The LGBF is also a key element in our Performance Excellence Project (PEP). Following the outcome of our 2019 BV3 audit the PEP has been exploring ways to improve our performance management, reporting and scrutiny. The PEP has a desired outcome of improved performance engagement and scrutiny by Officers, Elected Members and the Public. There has been engagement with elected members, Strategic Management Team, Heads of Service and Managers. The process has been facilitated by an external expert and has taken a root and branch review of our approach. Recommendations based on this engagement was brought to Council on 30th September 2021. A current work stream within the PEP is exploring options to target the use of the LGBF whilst working with Elected Members to ensure the priorities of the new administration are reflected in the use of the LGBF. Consideration for future use and presentation options based on the above will be taken forward during the course of 2022/2023. A regular update on all Performance Improvement Framework (PIF) activity which includes the PEP, is included in the Council 6-Month Performance Report at the June 2022 Audit and Scrutiny Committee meeting. 4.15 The LGBF is a large piece of work with a desired outcome of improved performance engagement and scrutiny by Officers, Elected Members and the Public. 4.16 The IS hold a series of Learning and Benchmarking events throughout the year. The purpose of these is to work with councils to further improve the appropriateness of the indicators. As a result of Covid these are now being held online which gives us the opportunity to attend more than has been possible in the past. We are fortunate that the Chief Executive Pippa Milne is a member of the Board of the LGBF, which supports our engagement going forward. 5.0 CONCLUSION 5.1 The Audit and Scrutiny Committee considers the contents of the report for scrutiny activity and performance reporting purposes. 5.2 Notes that the completed LGBF 2020/21 is published on our website as part of the Council’s statutory Public Performance Reporting duty. 6.0 IMPLICATIONS 6.1 Policy None 6.2 Financial None 6.3 Legal Publication forms part of our statutory Public Performance Reporting duty 6.4 HR None 6.5 Fairer Scotland Duty: No impact assessment required for this report. 6.5.1 Equalities: None. If requested the LGBF Report can
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be supplied in a different format. 6.5.2 Socio-economic Duty: None 6.5.3 Islands: None 6.6 Climate Change None 6.7 Risk None 6.8 Customer Service None Executive Director Kirsty Flanagan with responsibility for Customer Support Services 23 May 2022 For further information contact: Jane Fowler, Head of Customer Support Services Sonya Thomas, Performance and Improvement Officer Appendices Appendix 1 – LGBF 2020/21 by Corporate Outcome Appendix 2 – LGBF 2020/21 – All Indicators