CAA / Use of Resources
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Workstream:
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Corporate Improvement and Value for Money – Business Transformation
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Title:
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CAA/Use of Resources
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Scope:
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Sub-regional South Yorkshire
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Funds awarded:
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£100,000
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Lead contact:
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Julie Slatter
Tel:01709 822737
Email: julie.slatter@rotherham.gov.uk |
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Background:
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This project is comprised of three strands aimed at improving sub-regional performance and contribute to improved judgements against the CAA framework: |
1.Performance Management
• The project will develop an improved approach to Performance Management, addressing the common challenges faced by localities in achieving positive outcomes which reflect the needs of local people and a positive judgement against the CAA.
• It will also focus on the new Use of Resources judgements, considering how strategic partners demonstrate value for money across a local authority area.
2.Workforce
This project will focus on ensuring that local authorities and their partners understand the requirements of and have evidence to demonstrate compliance with the new Comprehensive Area Assessment Use of Resources assessment in respect of workforce issues. The new Comprehensive Area Assessment introduces a wider “Use of Resources” assessment than that used under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment regime. Issues relating to the workforce will be considered appearing under Key Line of Enquiry (KLOE) 3.3. We will assess if, and how, any sub-regional input is needed and may best contribute to overall high performance.
3. Member development
• Upskilling Members to allow more informed decision making to take place and to carry out their scrutiny, representative and quasi judicial roles under the modernised political management arrangements;
• Helping members to develop and carry out their emerging roles as community leaders;
• Improving Member-Officer working relationships by providing enhanced support to Members using the IDeA Member development self-assessment tool to identify gaps and issues
• Improved CAA judgements
• Improved and demonstrable outcomes with local areas
• Delivery of local area agreement targets through a robust performance management framework
• Increased Value For Money performance and efficiency gains
• A network of contacts for sharing workforce intelligence
• A set of workforce indicators for benchmarking across the region
• A set of agreed criteria for collecting workforce data to ensure like for like comparisons
• Undertake a ‘health check’ on governance arrangements within each local Authority area
• Use the results to guide methods on improving governance arrangements and of giving councillors the right tools for the job, in their work inside and beyond the town hall, e.g. peer review and support, mentoring, specific workshops, etc
• Evaluating the effectiveness of the programme based upon Member/Officer / public perception of councillor performance, quality of decision making scrutiny, community leadership, etc.
• Improve the local authority and region’s performance, management of intelligence and communication with stakeholders, public and partners
• Complement and add resources and capacity to developments already being undertaken or planned to improve performance management
• Address key cultural / organisational and process barriers to achieving the requirements of CAA
• Produce a VFM framework that demonstrates added value of strategic partnership working within the local area and ensure the effective use of resources in achieving local and national priorities
• Contribute to developing best practice and shared learning across the Region
• Implementation of a local robust performance tracking, monitoring and reporting framework to meet the requirements of the LAA and CAA.
Workforce
• Shared understanding amongst public sector partners on key workforce data.
• Learning from partners where excellence in workforce performance is identified.
• Demonstrable partnership approach to support CAA assessment of the Use of resources.
• A network of Officer contacts leading on workforce data measurement able to offer advice and support.
Local:
• Members better prepared to take effective decision-making on behalf of people in their area, to carry out their scrutiny and other roles under the modernised political management arrangements and to lead their communities.
• Improvement of the organisational effectiveness and perception of the Council by enhancing Member – Officer working relationship
• Collaborative working would heighten the rate if improvement via sharing and implementation of effective practice
• Improvement in cross-sub-region working relationships
• Members would be out of their usual environment, able to discuss issues more widely and thus enhance their knowledge and skills
• IDeA tool used to identify support needs, providing a practical model for councils to review support arrangements and support for councillors
• In the current economic climate it is vital that Members have a clear understanding about the workings of Local Government finance and how to support their residents and businesses with respect to the “credit crunch”. With this in mind, Members will need to be fully supported in understanding the implications for services provided by the Council and with their partners.