Best Value Duty

Theme 1: Continuous Improvement

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

  • Making arrangements to secure continuous improvement in performance and outcomes in relation to the exercise of all functions is a core requirement for achieving Best Value and should be done whilst reflecting local priorities. 
  • These arrangements will include inviting independent external challenge and scrutiny, in the form of regular service specific as well as corporate or finance peer challenges, engaging with the range of sector support initiatives on offer and informal experience sharing among peers. 
  • Lessons learnt and the steps taken to address mistakes and poor performance should be clearly documented in the authority’s Annual Governance Statement. 
  • Local authorities should also have a sense of collective responsibility for the performance of the sector and help other authorities to improve. 
  • The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) /Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) Delivering Good Governance in Local Government Framework, along with the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny and Localis Governance Risk and Resilience Framework can help authorities to identify, understand, and act on risks to good governance. 
  • The Council can demonstrate and evidence working with external auditors, corporate peer challenges, and the Social Housing Regulator as examples of how they have promptly responded to external challenge and any recommendations have been implemented quickly. 
  • The self-assessment was able to show that the Council has strong links with other organisations to foster mutual learning and development. The Council is represented by a number of Officers at various subject matter groups between Boroughs and Districts in the Surrey-wide network to encourage collaboration and continuous improvement. 
  • The Council’s committee system means that Members are far more engaged at Ward level than Members in a cabinet system. They act as a conduit for feedback from residents and voice the issues they hear from their communities to Officers. This supports the Council to continuously improve services by implementing citizen focused policies that reflects local priorities. 
  • The Council has shown that they have and will continue to participate in Oflog’s webinars to help to share best practice between local authorities and improve performance, productivity and value for money. 
  • While there are various pieces of work going on for the Digital Transformation Strategy that is in place, we must raise awareness of this work amongst staff. All service areas should be identifying opportunities for transformation and staff need to know how they can test and implement them.
  • Whilst the development of the Annual Governance Statement is collaborative and is reviewed by the Corporate Heads of Service, it is difficult to evidence that this provides a ‘stress test’ of the governance statement. The Council must seek sector guidance to obtain examples of best practice on this from other local authorities and review the AGS process in light of this for the next review.
  • The contract management framework has not been widely communicated due to resource changes in the procurement team in 2023/24. The Council plans to provide a briefing to all officers with this responsibility and update the Staff Home pages to have all the relevant information to ensure all staff are properly briefed. More officers with responsibility for performance of third-party contracts delivering services on behalf of the Council should complete the online contract management foundation level training.
  • Improve availability of risk information that is captured in business cases and project charters, not only to the project teams but to end users and those impacted by the change. A communications plan should be developed and delivered for new projects that include the risk profile. 
  •  The new My View HR system implemented in April 2024 will help provide the technology to assist the Council in measuring the performance of the workforce, which will help identify further areas for improvement. 
  • Additionally, the current Performance Management and Appraisals Framework is being built into the My View system, which will provide statistics on completion rates and evaluation of the quality of appraisals.  
  • As a result of implementing the business planning tool and improving data capture for monitoring progress of service area plans, consistency in reporting to service committees will be implemented to allow delivery and progress to be scrutinised. 
  • Review of KPI data should be undertaken in department management meetings on a quarterly basis as soon as data is available and validated. This will help identify areas for improvement early by engaging officers in reviewing team performance trends in service areas.
  • Significant consultation and engagement can be evidenced from across the Council, but there is opportunity to develop RBC’s citizen engagement framework by formalising the rules of engagement and ensure we are using best practice procedures. The Citizens’ Panel is planned to be implemented in Q4 2024, so the benefits of the resident engagement are yet to be realised. 
  • Provide annual refresher training for appraisees on how to maximise the benefits from performance reviews. This will help ensure performance standards are applied consistently, and the performance data can be used to drive continuous improvement. 
  • Develop a communications plan that not only raises awareness and prepares for the 2024 Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC), but also communicates the actions and outcomes as a result of the CPC. 
  • An external independent facilitator will deliver the organisational culture assessment, including a staff survey which will evaluate the culture in the Council and provide recommendations for improvement. The Council will act on the feedback to deliver cultural transformation at pace where change is normalised and seen as positive, to secure continuous improvement outcomes. 

Next Steps Identified in Action Plan:

Through self-assessment, we identified twelve key actions to implement to improve service delivery, laid out in page 1-6 of the action plan.