Organisational Culture - developing a culture of performance and continuous improvement

Introduction

Leadership

Setting priorities

Maintaining focus

The role of councillors

Organisational and decision making structures

Introduction

Having a good performance management system in place is not enough in itself to develop an effective approach to performance management. A culture of performance improvement needs to be developed in which everyone, including councillors, managers and staff, is committed to using performance management to improve outcomes for service users.

The Audit Commission report, 'Performance breakthroughs', (Improving performance in public sector organisations) aims to help public sector organisations overcome the difficulties of implementing and maintaining performance management systems - Read More. The Commission identifies eight important elements in the development of a culture of performance management and continuous improvement in organisations. Leaders and managers need to:

• Show staff that performance matters by what they do
  
• Take time to join up the thinking, assess whether things are improving, and to understand why if they are not improving
  
• Take action on what matters most, in order to ensure that change happens
  
• Translate national agendas into something that is more meaningful for their organisation
  
• Develop their own framework that is simple, focused and fits the organisation
  
• Measure what matters to demonstrate outcomes and results for people
  
• Help people perform and be prepared to deal with situations where people are not performing

BUT - why is it so difficult to manage performance effectively? The Commission identifies six main reasons:

• Leaders are not interested
  
• There is no time to learn (from successes or mistakes, or from others)
  
• There are too many priorities
  
• People do not currently understand what is done has to change if real improvements are to be achieved
  
• The system doesn't help
  
• Some people do not perform

Further information about the problems of implementing a successful performance management system and how to respond can be found in the IDeA publication 'Making performance management work' which is available through the IDeA Knowledge website.

Leadership

Clear leadership and direction is required to promote a culture of performance management and continuous improvement in service delivery within social services.
Leaders, councillors and senior managers, need to demonstrate on an ongoing basis that good performance is important through their own actions and behaviour.
This leadership must ensure that a comprehensive approach to performance management is put in place, which is open and owned by all staff working in the organisation. Seven high level questions need to be addressed by senior management and political leaders:

• Do councillors and managers have a clear, agreed direction and set of priorities for social care
  
• Has this direction been formulated with the workforce, key partner and user groups.
  
• Do councillors and managers have the right mechanisms and information to enable them to both measure and manage performance effectively?
  
• Do staff know what is expected of them and do managers know if they are achieving it?
  
• Has the council assessed the risks inherent in its corporate and social services plans?
  
• Does the council ensure that it is making its resources work in the best way to deliver value for money?
  
• Does the council know whether its performance management arrangements are making a real difference by improving services on the ground, and that these improvements are measurable?

Leadership can also be demonstrated by councillors and senior managers regularly reviewing their performance management arrangements to ensure they remain 'fit for purpose'. Constantly striving to improve the system in itself can demonstrate the importance attached by leaders to performance management. Leaders send a very poor message to staff and service users if they simply ensure that a performance management system is put in place and then do not play their full part in the ensuring it works well.

EXHIBIT 2 Councillors and senior managers should demonstrate that managing performance is important

Source: Joint Reviews

Setting priorities

Councils need to be clear about their corporate priorities and their priorities relating to social services for both service development and improvement. These should be evident in a council's plans at all levels, including the strategic plan for its social services and the individual service plans which cascade from it.

There are a number of key issues which need to be addressed in setting priorities:

• Engage the community, and service users and carers in particular, in the process for determining priorities
  
• Ensure that special consideration is given to seek the views of 'hard to reach' groups in setting priorities
  
• Ensure that a balance is reached in the need to prioritise between national requirements and those of local importance
  
• Ensure that priorities are ambitious but realistic
  
• Be clear about what are not priorities
  
• Ensure that once priorities have been set, they are communicated to all parties who have been engaged in the process of agreeing them, including user groups, provider organisations and statutory partners
  
• Ensure that staff in social services understand the priorities for service development and improvement and that they know they will be expected to contribute to their delivery
• Ensure that there is the capacity and resources to deliver developments and improvements in priority areas
  

Maintaining focus

Performance management is an effective mechanism for ensuring that the social services, partners and providers maintain a focus on priority areas. Attention to priorities should not be distracted by responses to less important problems. New initiatives on matters of less importance, however admirable, can consume capacity and resources. Elements of performance management that are of particular importance to maintaining focus are:

• Service plans which respond to the priorities for development and improvement by including clear objectives, milestones and targets
  
• A staff appraisal system which sets objectives for individual members of staff aimed at delivering the priorities
  
• A system for reporting progress against targets and related performance indicators for members and managers at all levels. Reports to councillors should include the executive, portfolio holder and scrutiny.
• A process to allow service users and carers to monitor progress

The role of councillors

Councillors have key roles to play in performance management arrangements for social services. This may include specific responsibilities in relation to the executive, the scrutiny function, Best Value, and dealing with complaints, in addition to the role of individual members in their constituencies. The key roles are as follows:

The leader, portfolio holder and cabinet/executive should:

• Be responsible for setting the strategic direction for social services
  
• Determine the priority areas for service development and improvement
  
• Clarify the social services input to delivering the broader cross-cutting ambitions of the council
• Receive regular reports of progress against objectives and set targets
  

The scrutiny function should:

• Receive regular reports about performance, including progress against targets and the comparative trends over time of the PAF and local indicators
  
• Undertake detailed analysis of performance against areas of service determined by them (which might be areas where performance is poor or deteriorating)
  
• Take specific responsibility for the monitoring of local health services, particularly in the important areas of interface between primary health care services and social services. Councils that are making good progress in responding to their new powers of health scrutiny have:
  
  • embedded this into their overall scrutiny arrangements
    
  • trained members in this new role
    
  • seen it as a crucial element of their community leadership role through community planning

  • buillt on good partnership working between its social services and local NHS bodies - Read More

     

Best Value reviews of services:

Best Value reviews are an important way in which the performance of particular areas of service delivery can be identified. This includes:

• Clarifying whether the service is required in its current form
  
• Comparing their councils performance with others
  
• Considering the effectiveness of different options for delivering the service
  
• Ensuring the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of services.
  

Councillors have a key role to play in determining the subject and scope of reviews. They should ensure review processes deliver the requirements of Best Value, monitoring progress with reviews and acting on the outcomes and recommendations from reviews. Scrutiny panels are sometimes used as the councillor input to Best Value reviews as this ensures that there are links between the Best Value review programme and the scrutiny function - Read More

Complaints

Councillors will become involved in the panels to consider formal complaints that have not been resolved through the normal management processes, as laid down by the formal complaints procedure for social services - Read More

Local constituency role

Councillors have important roles to play in:

• Identifying local issues and priorities
  
• Representing their constituents when they have concerns about the quality of services
  
• Special arrangements to engage an communicate with local communities such as community forums

Organisational and decision making structures

Councils need to identify and address the following:

Ensure that the arrangements to support performance management are sound

For example, it is essential that the management arrangements for the support of performance management (such as data collection and analysis, management information systems, management of complaints, support to the staff appraisal processes, etc) are consistent and robust.

Determine the management arrangements for performance management.

The council will need central staff to support performance management arrangements for the whole council, and the scale of activity and support needed for social services will require dedicated support. Staff providing support to social services can be managed through corporate performance management support structures or based in and managed through the social services management. Whichever of these approaches is adopted, there are a number of issues which need to be considered:

• Staff supporting performance management functions will have dual accountability to the corporate body and to social services management wherever the direct line management responsibilities for these staff lie
  
• The council will need to ensure that both sets of accountabilities are being delivered, and there needs to be clear recognition of the potential for inbuilt tensions for the staff involved
  
• Whoever has direct line management responsibility will need to ensure that the support staff are sufficiently skilled to be able to deliver both sets of accountabilities
  
• Clear accountabilities for the production of up to date and accurate data need to be established. Responsibilities will inevitably be spread among staff in a number of locations, including frontline staff and those responsible for data collection and analysis. It is important that the responsibilities of each of these staff are clearly identified, and that one member of the senior management team should have ultimate responsibility for the production of accurate and timely management information.

Clear accountability structures need to be identified through a 'scheme of delegation'.

The scheme should ensure that those responsible for decisions affecting the delivery of a service are accountable for the performance of that service. Accountabilities in the management hierarchy should not be blurred.