Best Value Duty

Theme 7: Partnerships and Community Engagement

Self-Assessment Heatmap
PCE001 PCE002 PCE003 PCE004 PCE005 PCE006
PCE007          

Best Value Duty - Description of a Local Authority Whose Service Delivery Delivers Best Value:

  • Driving local economic growth, promoting social cohesion and pride in place is increasingly dependent on the effectiveness of partnerships and collaborative working arrangements with a range of local stakeholders and service users. 
  • Authorities should have a clear understanding of and focus on the benefits that can be gained by effective collaborative working with local partners and community engagement. Partnerships can maximise opportunities for sharing resources, achieving outcomes and creating a more joined-up offer that meets the needs of residents and local service users. Stronger and more effective partnerships can also lead to better community engagement, for example working through partners to engage more effectively. 
  • Appropriate governance structures should be in place to oversee these arrangements, and the process of consultation and engagement should be inclusive, open and fair. There are statutory requirements on local authorities to engage with Integrated Care Partnerships, Integrated Care Boards, Community Safety Partnerships, safeguarding adults and children’s boards, Youth Offending Management Boards and many others. There are also statutory Best Value requirements around consultation and on considering the social value of services when reviewing service provision. An inclusive approach that accepts challenge is an indicator of a confident organisation.
  • The Council was able to show that considerable importance is placed on ensuring effective leadership of place through Members and Officers by facilitating opportunities to gain a greater understanding of communities in Runnymede, the specific issues communities face, and how the council can help overcome these issues by working with local partners and through community engagement.
  • The Council is proud of its partnership working and has various long standing and effective arrangements with public sector systems and local partners to improve policy development, local economic growth and investment, and customer-focused outcomes. There are many examples that demonstrate the culture of developing and growing key partnerships over time to benefit all parties, whether in co-designing and delivering community services or collaborative working with shared roles to bring about an efficiency saving.
  • The Council has shown the various resident engagement efforts that have been put in place. By hearing from our residents, learning what they believe will have the most impact on our economy, communities and society, we are able to implement services with the most social value.
  • Whilst there is clear evidence of residents and local partners contributing to discussions with the Council when the performance of services has fallen short, there are limited examples of these groups being involved in setting service targets or performance indicators and being regularly informed of performance achievements. More opportunities to co-design services with residents and partners should be sought and facilitate more opportunities to accept challenge and feedback.
  • The Council found that measuring and evidencing benefits realised from partnership working could be improved to ensure that there is a clear understanding of the benefits that can be gained from effective local partnerships, and which partnerships facilitate the most social value.
  • To ensure that there is early and meaningful engagement and effective collaboration with communities to identify and understand local needs and assets, a demographically representative Citizens’ Panel is planned. Output from the panel will be used to make better evidence-based decisions about Council services, to ensure that the needs and views of residents are considered in decisions made. However, setting up the panel has been delayed due to stretched resources and time. 
  • The Council identified that they could further develop the evidence base with examples of engagement with the public and how these interactions have shaped services. They will seek additional evidence and develop case studies from across the organisation as to how service areas have collaborated with communities and co-designed services to demonstrate that this happens routinely.
  • The Council hopes to use the data collected from the Housing Focus Groups and the Citizens’ Panel to form an evidence base of the needs of residents and local service users, and any considerations for the services provided. Discussion within these groups will highlight the challenges that need to be overcome and contribute to updating a shared vision for the borough.
  • The Council will develop, test and review more participative forms of decision making to maximise the benefits of effective collaborative working. The Council will identify opportunities for partners and local residents to influence indicators and targets.
  • The Council found that measuring and evidencing benefits realised from partnership working could be strengthened further. Where applicable, they will develop in conjunction with partners, mechanisms to measure and report on the benefits of partnership working.
  • The Council identified that they must strengthen the organisational culture so that that the value of working with public sector systems and local partners is better recognised. An organisational culture and leadership review will be assessed in in Summer 2024, this will be followed by a series of events to communicate the feedback and results of the survey to build trust, confidence, and transparency. An action plan will subsequently be developed to address gaps identified to be implemented. 

Next Steps Identified in Action Plan:

Through self-assessment, we identified six key actions to implement to improve service delivery, laid out in page 21-24 of the action plan.