CITY OF SALFORD
STRATEGIC PLAN –
BEST VALUE PERFORMANCE PLAN
2001 / 2002
INTRODUCTION
This is the City Council’s second Best Value Performance Plan which builds upon the success of our first plan last year. It represents the principal means by which partners and the citizens of Salford are able to measure the performance of the authority in achieving its vision for the city of ‘creating the best possible quality of life for the people of Salford.
This year’s plan is combined with the City Council’s Strategic Plan to provide overall direction and strategy for the authority. This is explained further below. The Council wishes to be open and receptive to the public and to direct its effort and resources to their needs. Considerable energies are devoted to ensuring that we understand the needs and aspirations of the public. We also wish to be accountable and have provided data comparing our current performance with that of previous years, and that of other authorities. Plans for the coming year are outlined along with targets to measure success in reaching them. The difficulties and constraints facing the authority are also reflected.
This detailed Strategic Plan – Best Value Performance Plan will be published by 31 March, 2001, and be available throughout the City at libraries and on request. This Plan is subject to scrutiny by the District Auditor who will publish her views of the Plan by the end of June 2001. A shorter summary Plan is being distributed to all households, businesses and partners within the City. The summary plan will be contained within the publication Salford People and delivered to households during the first week of April 2001.
The comprehensive Plan is divided into five sections as detailed in the contents page overleaf. Section 1 provides the Strategic Context of the Plan, including Council priorities and objectives. Section 2 reflects intentions and outcomes from the best value process. Section 3 contains commentaries from all Directorates outlining achievements in 2000/2001 and targets and ‘big issues’ for 2001/2002. Section 4 sets out key performance indicators, providing an overview of the performance of the whole City Council. Section 5 supports this with a comprehensive listing of performance indicators and progress against milestones from the former Strategic Plan.
FOREWORD FROM THE LEADER OF THE COUNCIL
The City Council believes that the people of Salford deserve the very best in terms of public services. We are committed to continually improving our services despite growing demands (especially for social care services) and limited financial resources. Last year the Council faced difficult decisions regarding how best to meet demands when financial savings were also required. We believe that we have successfully achieved this difficult balance.
As pressures continue we have published this Plan in order to demonstrate how we are working with communities and with our partners to serve the people of Salford.
Please consider this Plan or the Summary Plan and let us have your comments by completing the response sheet on page …….. We value your feedback.
CONTENTS
Page
Introduction
Foreword from the Leader of the Council
1.0 Section 1 The Strategic Context (Pages coloured)
1.1 The Council’s objectives and Priorities
1.2 Budget Context
1.3 How the Council operates, reviews and monitors performance
1.4 How the Council procures services
1.5 How the Council consults
1.6 How the Council ensures equal opportunities
1.7 How the Council promotes sustainable communities
1.8 Financial details
1.9 Independent inspection
2.0 Section 2 The programme of best value reviews and how we carry them out
(Pages coloured)
2.1 Best Value and Salford’s five year programme of fundamental best value reviews
2.2 2.2 How we carry out best value reviews
2.3 Key results of completed reviews
3.0 Section 3 - Performance in Context
3.1 Profile of the City
(Pages coloured)
3.2 Directorate commentaries
(Pages coloured)
4.0 Section 4 - Key Performance indicators
(Pages coloured) - Performance and targets
4.1
4.2
5.0 Section 5 – Comprehensive performance indicators
(Pages coloured) – Performance and targets
5.1
5.2 Performance against milestones
5.3 Performance against local and national performance indicators
SECTION 1
THE STRATEGIC CONTEXT
1.1 THE COUNCIL’S OBJECTIVES AND PRIORITIES
The City Council continues to face increasing demand for its services, particularly the care of children. These pressures are within a continuing context of extremely difficult financial circumstances. It is of paramount importance that the City Council reviews its priorities and corporate objectives in order to ensure that these guide the distribution of its resources, the level at which it carries out its responsibilities and the way in which it exercises its functions.
This process commenced in September, 2000 with the establishment of a 3 year budget strategy and positive programme for change. This combines a rigorous approach to a three year budget strategy with a review of strategic direction and priorities. The competing demands on the Council are indicated by the diagram ‘Squaring the Circle’ at figure 1. Government urges us to find innovative solutions to meet these challenges by :-
§ having an outward focus
§ identifying needs and selecting priorities
§ partnering other organisations
§ providing vision and leadership for communities
§ delivering high quality, best value services
- within an overall duty to secure the economic, environmental and social well being of communities.
The diagram ‘Squaring the Circle’ outlines the complex array of issues all exerting pressure on the City Council. For example changing demographics bring an ageing population with more single households. Greater public expectations for improved services and instant access to services exert pressures for alternative methods of service delivery and a requirement for staff to operate more flexibly. This is coupled with Government exhortations for councils to deliver ‘best value’ services, and policed through rigorous and comprehensive inspection programmes. This is met by reducing finances coming into the City Council and a consequent need to make savings on all services. More effective working with partner agencies eg. Health, police and the voluntary sector becomes an imperative. The City Council is working hard to prioritise its efforts accordingly and to build strategies for addressing these pressures. These are explained in more detail in this section and in sections 2 and 3.
The strategic repositioning of the Council and its priorities starts clearly with Salford’s mission:-
‘To create the best possible quality of life for the people of Salford.’
Secondly, the City Council has established ……. strategic pledges to guide us through these difficult times :
We pledge to ensure:
§ Better Education for all
We want every child to get the best start in life. We will work to ensure no child leaves school without qualifications and bring the number of 5+ A-C grade G.C.S.E. from 35/5% up to 38% by 2004.
§ Quality Homes for all
Quality homes for all is vital to our quality of life. We will continue to promote investment in new housing and in much needed housing repairs. We will reduce the number of households living in social housing that do not meet standards of decency by a third between 2001 and 2004. We will work with homeowners and private landlords to assist them in maintaining and managing their homes effectively within the context of new powers to be provided by government.
§ Clean, Healthy and Valued Environment
We will increase the effectiveness of our litter and waste collection operations ensuring increased satisfaction in the service from 75% to 95% for 2003/04. We will increase the percentage of household waste recycled from 6.6% to 20% by 2002.
§ Fighting Crime for a Safer City
Crime and the fear of crime blight modern life. We will work with the police and other partners to reduce crime and have put in place a long term strategy to tackle crime and disorder in the city. By 2002 we will reduce the number of burglaries by 5% in 2001 and 20% by 2004.
§ Rebuilding our Communities
We aim to support and regenerate our communities. We will build upon the significant reduction in unemployment over the last 4 years and ensure unemployment levels in no ward in the city exceed 1½ times the city average by 2002. (Current city average of 4.3% compare to 3.7% nationally). We will ensure quality social services for all who need them. We will work to increase the % of children looked after in a family setting from 61% to 75% by 2004.
§ Support more older and vulnerable people at home
Thirdly, as part of this positive process the Council’s Strategic Plan 1997-2007 is to be combined with the annual Best Value Performance Plan. This is aimed at providing greater clarity, synergy and accountability both internally and to our citizens and partners. This is to be achieved on a phased basis. The Plan for 2001 / 2002 constitutes an interim stage, bringing the two documents together as far as possible, at this stage. The driving focus of the Strategic Plan’s 10 corporate objectives are outlined below, and the milestones which translate these into measurable, defined actions for ourselves and our partners are included within the performance management section (Section 5). These, alongside local and national performance indicators should give a real sense of the effectiveness of our strategies and actions and their impact upon the local community. It is proposed to further develop this process by revisiting and reviewing the 10 corporate objectives during 2001 / 2002, as part of the overall three year change programme. The revised corporate objectives will be included in the Strategic Plan - Best Value Performance Plan for 2002 / 2003. That Plan will also reflect improved integration and rationalisation of performance information; and greater integration of the planning and budgetary processes.
STRATEGIC PLAN, 10 CORPORATE OBJECTIVES
- Ensure the best possible standards of personal health and social care for individuals, families and communities in the City.
- Giving all people within the City the opportunity to live in a good quality home.
- Continuing to raise aspirations and achievements by providing learning and development opportunities of the highest quality.
- Ensure excellent employment prospects and high quality job opportunities for the people of Salford.
- Ensure the City provides opportunities for recreation, leisure and cultural enhancement.
- Making Salford a Safer place.
- Ensuring the City has a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
- Ensuring we maximise investment in the City.
- Promote sustainable development which balances development needs and environmental quality within the City.
- Promoting Salford as a City of national importance.
(NB: Progress against milestones are included in Section 5)
The combined Strategic Plan – Best Value Performance Plan provides in a single document direction and clarity of purpose, for the City Council, in the immediate and short- term, combined with clear accountability against measurable performance targets. This Plan provides overall direction for the plethora of strategies and plans, required by Government and others. The Plan should also be seen in context with the Salford Community Plan, which will be developed and compiled during 2001 with the Salford Partnership. The Salford Community Plan will embrace the Salford Partnership’s role and responsibilities in terms of community planning and neighbourhood renewal, through a comprehensive and holistic approach to regeneration with its communities. Figure 2 shows the Salford Community Plan bringing together the aspirations and actions of key partners to a common aim. Each of the partners has its own Business or Strategic Plan (the Strategic Plan – Best Value Performance Plan for the Council) which translates these common aims into specific strategies for that organisation.
The Salford Partnership was launched in the spring 1994 and is innovative partnership vehicle, which has brought about real change across the City. This plan is building upon the work already undertaken and it aims to highlight the value of partnership. Many of the initiatives and services delivered in the City would have been thought unthinkable a few years ago because they depended upon a huge level of cross agency working. This is clearly the way we must go in order to achieve the right outcomes for local people, communities and businesses.
Through our community planning process, we will:
§ Pull together partner organisations and local people to develop clear and focused priorities for the City;
§ Inform individual business and strategic plans and budget processes, to shape service delivery across partner organisations;
§ Be capable of achieving real and lasting impact, with a balance of performance indicators to monitor our effectiveness in delivering sustainable outcomes;
§ Be innovative, creative and bold in examining and actively promoting different ways of working;
§ Enable partners to allocate resources against shared priorities;
§ Integrate policies and initiatives to ensure synergy and form the backdrop for locally based bids for resources.
1.2 BUDGET CONTEXT
The Council has continued the development of its budget strategy over recent years with the five main aims as shown below:-
§ Spending the money wisely to ensure that council taxpayers receive value for money.
§ Ensuring that the level of Council Tax is affordable.
§ Targeting the Council’s spending on those areas identified as priorities by the public.
§ Seeking to improve the grant settlements from Government.
§ Responding to the Government’s priorities for local services as set out in its comprehensive spending reviews.
The Council is committed to continuing and expanding its budget consultation process. In September 2000 it published two documents, “Calling the Tune” which sets out the Council’s policy towards budget consultation, and “Taking the Initiative” which sets out the issues which the Council faced for the 2001/02 budget. The responses were reported back to Cabinet in October for consideration during the budget process. The second stage of consultation with the public on the Council’s detailed budget proposals took place in early February and the public’s comments were taken into account by the Council in determining the budget and Council Tax levy.
In recent years the achievement of the Council’s aims and the ability to respond fully to the issues raised by its residents via the consultation process have been hampered by pressures on the revenue budget. These have been well documented but more recently they relate mainly to a surge in the number or children looked after by the Council and the loss of Government grant arising from a reduction in traffic flows, adjustments relating to the cost of living in London and the South East and in particular the loss of population.