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Councillors and committees

Agenda item

Delivering Thrive - a New Performance Management and Improvement Framework

Report of the Strategic Director, Resources and Digital

Minutes:

A presentation was given to Committee on the new Performance Management and Improvement framework. The new framework has a strong focus on people and on what the Council is doing to address challenges and achieve its Thrive priorities and deliver the Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

 

There is a move away from performance indicators to management action and change. The guiding principles are that this will be shaped and owned by Councillors, to scrutinise performance, see impact of decision making and deploy resources. There will be a strong employee focus so that staff can see how they are contributing to the Council’s priorities.

 

The development of a new approach began by agreeing some underpinning guiding principles which aims to develop a framework that: 

 

·       Is shaped around the characteristics needed to enable people to thrive

·        Is simple, responsive, timely and meaningful indicators

·        Empowers employees to drive improvement

·        Incorporates qualitative and quantitative approaches

·        Recognises locality-based approaches, population and community level    interventions to improve

·        Considers partnerships, communities and aligned to key policies and strategies such as the Health and Well-being Strategy, housing and schools

·        Is intelligence led, using evidence to learn and improve

·        Considers how to incorporate a wider range of data, for example linking to a ‘Data hub’ approach

·        Measures the health of the organisation (balanced scorecard approach)

·        Enables members to scrutinise performance and see the impact of decision making

 

There will be a focus on the most vulnerable residents through the Health and Wellbeing Strategy mechanism. Emerging strategies are around Economic, Housing and Investment with interventions required to fulfil Climate Emergency response and Community Wealth Building. These will be the building blocks for Council priorities.

 

It was noted that Councillors have been engaged from the beginning and there has been strong support for an approach framed around the Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Analysis has been held at a corporate level to see what policies need to change.  This approach will be developed and improved over the year.

 

An Employee Network was established and there was a lot of enthusiasm which is essential as this will be driven by employees.

 

The purpose the new Performance Management Framework is to:

 

  Enable the Council to know whether the it is achieving its priorities. (Thrive Policy)

  Ensure that the Council's resources are being deployed effectively

  Make both short and long term effective decisions

  A whole systems approach – embedded in our partnership working to deliver the Health and Wellbeing Strategy

 

Corporate Performance framework has been structured around the six policy objectives of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy;

 

-        Give every child the best start in life

-        Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and control over their lives

-        Create fair employment and good work for all

-        Ensure a healthy standard of living for all in accordance with international law on economic and social rights

-        Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities

-        Strengthen the role and impact of ill health prevention

 

For each of these six objectives key features have been identified.

 

It is anticipated that the framework will provide; transparency and clarity on delivering priorities, links between performance and resources, ability to scrutinise effectively and enable informed policy decisions to be taken.

 

The framework will go to Cabinet for approval in April and will be implemented thereafter, it was noted that this will be continually developed.

 

It was suggested that we use Council employees who live in Gateshead as a test for views.

 

RESOLVED -  That the presentation and the views of the Corporate Resources OSC be noted.

 

Supporting documents:

 

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