KEY THEMES
Overview
Why effective performance
management is important
The national context
The corporate context in councils
This section concentrates on the context for effective performance management in social services, explaining why it is so important for councillors, managers, frontline practitioners and, most significantly, for service users and their carers. It identifies the need for performance management to be placed in a national context for both social services and the corporate council, and explores why the council must set a corporate framework for performance management to aid its delivery and development in social services.
A working definition of performance management:
'Performance management is taking action to make outcomes better than they would otherwise be. It means taking action in response to actual performance, which might be at an individual, team, service, corporate, or community level.
- To know what action to take, performance has to
be monitored
- To know how to judge performance, criteria have to
be agreed (aims, objectives, targets etc)
- To know how to assess performance against the criteria,
there has to be a method (for example performance indicators)
- Applying this to a whole organisation requires some systematic action and co-ordination'
Performance management is more than the monitoring of key performance indicators. It embraces all activities that are designed to support the effective delivery of services. Performance management should operate within an overall framework where the outcomes are greater than the constituent parts. The focus of this framework and all the constituent activities must be to deliver continuous improvement in services for local people.
The key elements of a performance management framework in social services, or when working in partnership with other agencies, are:
- Setting service quality standards
- Setting objectives and targets for service improvement
- Managing information
- Monitoring performance against standards
- Monitoring performance against targets and key performance
indicators
- Monitoring performance in service delivery through
contracts
- Managing individual performance
- Reporting performance, and using information to
identify problems and to take decisions to solve them
- Equipping individuals to perform well
- Managing complaints and user feedback
- Informing and empowering service users
EXHIBIT 1 The Performance management jigsaw
Source: Joint Reviews
There are two other essential activities which must be in place to help
provide the basis for an effective performance management system:
- A comprehensive service planning process
- An effective budget management process
Why effective performance management
is important
Service users are the people who
are most affected by both good or poor performance.
An inadequate approach to performance management will hinder the ability
of service users to judge the services made available to them, and will
disempower them. Equally it will leave councillors, managers and frontline
staff unsure about how well and consistently they are meeting the needs
of service users.
Performance management is a necessary part of good governance of public
services. The Audit Commission's definition of 'Governance' is:
''The framework of accountability to users and stakeholders
and the wider community, within which organisations take decisions, and
lead and control their functions to achieve their objectives.''
If good performance can be identified through results, both public and
political support can be gained.
Good performance management arrangements will assist in ensuring the effective and efficient delivery of services by:
- Providing information to councillors, managers,
frontline staff and service users about how well the service policies
and priorities are being delivered, enabling them to take action to
address problems
- Ensuring that risk is managed effectively
- Ensuring that resources and effort are directed
at tackling areas of poor performance
- Ensuring that service users and carers know what standards to expect from services, how well services are performing against those standards, and how to respond to both good and poor performance
- Demonstrating how social services is helping
to deliver the broader cross-cutting agendas for the council
The national context
Comprehensive Performance Assesments (CPAs)
All Councils in England are now subject to a Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) co-ordinated by the Audit Commission under the direction of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
All single-tier council and shire councils received their first performance rating in November 2002. This incorporates the judgement made by the Audit Commission from the corporate inspection together with the results from assessments undertaken by the regulatory bodies for individual services areas, which include ratings by the Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) and the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) (among others).
There is a statutory set of Best Value indicators for councils that are also used to provide evidence for the CPA rating.
The CPA ratings were refreshed in December 2003 to incorporate the most recent judgements from the regulatory bodies.
The CPA is being reviewed for 2005, and this might include revisions to the performance management element of the Corporate Assessment - Read More
The Performance Assessment System for Social Services
The Government's White Paper, 'Modernising Social Services', sets out the arrangements to assess the performance of each council with Social Services responsibilities within the wider regime of 'Best Value'.
This performance assessment pulls together evidence from a number of sources that are intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the performance of each council:
- Performance Data: The information from
the Performance Assessment Framework (PAF) indicators
provides a statistical overview of performance at the end of each year.
This is supplemented by the larger number of indicators gathered and
made available through the Key Indicators Graphical
System (KIGS)
- Evaluation: The Social Services Inspectorate
(SSI) inspections, and those undertaken by the SSI/Audit Commission
Joint Reviews provide an in-depth evaluation of Social Services. Judgements
are made about current performance management in the range of No, Some,
Most, and Yes and future prospects/capacity to improve in the range
of Poor, Uncertain, Promising, Excellent. The functions of both of these
organisations become the responsibility of the new Commission for Social
Care Inspection (CSCI) from 1st April, 2004
- Monitoring: SSI monitors progress towards improvements planned by councils throughout the year, informed by Delivery and Improvement Statements produced by councils each spring and autumn. These statements assess the achievements and risks for each council, and provide both quantitative and qualitative information about current performance, plans and forecasts to the end of each year. Monitoring also involves follow-up of actions arising from performance indicators, inspections and joint reviews. The statements also now incorporate the majority of the plans councils are required to produce which relate to specific grants or other major policy initiatives (such as 'Quality Protects' to improve the life chances of looked after children)
Performance Ratings (The 'Star Ratings')
An overall annual rating for each council is
derived from the sources of information listed above.
Performance ratings for social services were first published
in May 2002, with the most up-to-date ratings being published in November,
2003. The ratings represent the Social Services Inspectorate's (the Commission
for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) will take responsibility for this function
from the first of April 2004) independent judgements about the performance
of all social services, on a scale of Zero to Three stars. Separate judgements
are made for services for children and families and for services for adults.
A set of rules are applied to determine the star rating, which are detailed
in the Chief Inspectors letter (CI(2002)4). For more information click
here
The Performance Assessment Framework Indicators (PAF)
The fifth set of PAF indicators, which were produced
in November 2003, identifies the performance of all social services authorities
against the 50 key national performance indicators for the year 2002/3.
Of the key indicators, 18 relate to children and families and 32 to services
for adults. Of the PAF indicators, 14 form part of the statutory set of
'Best Value' indicators for councils The PAF results are updated annually.
The purpose of the performance framework indicators is to promote improvements
in the performance of councils by:
- Encouraging councils to better understand their
own performance
- Enabling councils to monitor the trends in their
performance (although caution is needed with this as aspects of the
framework change each year including the development of existing indicators,
deleting indicators and adding new ones)
- Enabling councils to benchmark their performance
against the performance of other councils
- Contributing to the overall assessment of the councils
performance leading to the 'Star Rating'
The national framework is made up of five key performance domains (which are also 'Best Value' domains):
- National Priorities and Strategic Objectives - the
extent to which councils with social services responsibilities are delivering
the national priorities for social care and their own local strategic
objectives
- Cost and Efficiency - the extent to which councils
with social services responsibilities provide cost effective and efficient
services
- Effectiveness of service delivery and outcomes -
the extent to which services are:
- appropriate to need
- increases self-sufficiency and social and economic participation
- in line with best practice
- to agreed standards
- timely
- delivered by appropriately trained staff and council's success
in using its resources to increase self-sufficiency, social and
economic participation
- increases life chances of looked after children
- provides safe and supportive services
- Quality of services for users and carers - user/carer perceptions and experiences of services; responsiveness of services to individual needs; continuity of provision; involvement of users/carers in assessment and review
- Fair Access - the fairness of provision in relation
to need, the existence of clear eligibility criteria (for adults), the
provision of accessible information about the provision of services
For an example of how these domains can be used by Councils, See Good Practice - Leicestershire County Council - Aiming for a balanced profile
A fundamental review of the indicators is under way. A number of development groups have been established covering specific policy areas overseen by a Performance Group. Changes may appear in the 2003/4 indicator set but more changes are likely in the 2004/5 set with gradual change thereafter.
Key Indicators Graphical System
The Department of Health collects a range of data from councils with social services responsibilities and from the NHS through a series of statistical returns. The data informs policy development and the national inspection programmes. These are published to aid local planning and to provide a framework for comparisons to be made. As well as the PAF indicators, other data can be accessed through the Key Indicators Graphical System (KIGS).
KIGS contains some 400 indicators and allows councils to plot their performance against all or a selection of other councils, to identify trends in performance over a number of years, and to examine relationships between indicators.
KIGS is a software package which produces charts of indicators, which can be used to compare performance against councils within the comparator groups identified by the Department of Health, or can be used to provide information on two related indicators together.
For more information about how to access KIGS click here.
The corporate context within a council has a very significant impact on the delivery of effective performance management arrangements within social services.
In order to ensure that corporate arrangements and processes for performance management set an appropriate context, councils need to ensure the following are in place (see Good Practice Tips):
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