Discussion Session Performance Management and the CAA

1
Discussion Session - Performance Management and
the CAA

• the main requirements of the CAA and their
  implications for services and performance
  information
• Brendan McCarron, Adviser CIPFA Performance
  Improvement Network
• May 2007, Discussion paper Managing performance
  and productivity http//www.improvementnetwork.go
  v.uk/imp/aio/1052462
• May 2008 Discussion paper Making sure your
  authoritys performance management systems are
  fit for purpose www.cipfanetworks.net/pin

2
Some perspective

• Government is for
• Defence of the Realm
• Trade
• Infrastructure
• Education
• The Government is committed to world-class
  public services that deliver the outcomes people
  want and expect. - 2004 Spending Review
• PSA 1 (2007) - Raise the productivity of the UK
  economy

Wants and expectations
gap?
Outcomes delivered
3
Treasury Public Sector Performance Panel

• Treasury rival to cabinet office in early New
  Labour period
• Targeting improved performance
• Refocussing Performance Management

4
Areas are it

• The Treasury likes the idea of areas rather than
  structures
• Rational, tidy, simple...
• GO's are custodians, on behalf of departments, of
  PSA negotiations and achievement via the LAA

5
Comprehensive Performance Assessment

• Clue is in the title - performance
• A stop gap?
• The choice between CPA and EFQM was close
• Red/golden threads
• Enablers and results
• RADAR logic
• Determine Results, plan and develop Approaches,
  Deploy approaches, Assess and Review approaches
  and their deployment

6
Comprehensive Area Assessment
Inspection results
NIC
Overall risk assessment
Overall Narrative
Use of Resources 1 - 4
Direction of Travel 1 - 4
Embedded AC Person
7
LAA and CAA
Today
LAA
authority
Monitored by AC via CAA to locals?
Monitored by GO to departments?
Tomorrow?
LAA
authority
What about local democratic political leadership?
8
Timeline

• May 2008
• Publication of CAA summary documentUse of
  resources consultation and key lines of enquiry
• June/July 2008
• Approval of document through joint inspectorate
  and cross-government arrangements
• July/August 2008
• Next round of consultation on proposed CAA
  framework Second phase of action learning starts
• October 2008
• Second phase of action learning completed
• November/December 2008
• Consultation closes and results analysed and
  final approvals agreed
• Jan 2009
• Publication of final CAA framework

9
National Indicators

• As the priority outcomes sought in PSA targets
  are achieved, where appropriate they become
  national standards.
• If an indicator is used as a target it ceases to
  have value
• Goodhart's law does not tell us what happens when
  a target becomes an indicator

• 172/233 respondents to the AC against scoring
  mostly because not relevant to CAA
• Hard to convey meaning to public
• Non linear effects present in many of the NIC

10
Indicators but, of what?

• New evidence from the US suggests that in
  ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of
  all races tend to hunker down. Trust (even of
  ones own race) is lower, altruism and community
  cooperation rarer, friends fewer.
• Professor Robert D. Putnam, the E Pluribus Unum
  Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first
  Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture
  Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 30 No. 2,
  2007)?
• See also, Where is the Grass Greenest? -
  Understanding of Factors Affecting Satisfaction
  with Local Area April 2008 Ipsos Mori

• PSA 21 Build more cohesive, empowered and active
  communities
• NI 1 of people who believe people from
  different backgrounds get on well together in
  their local area
• NI 2 of people who feel that they belong to
  their neighbourhood
• NI 4 of people who feel they can influence
  decisions in their locality

11
Overall Risk Assessment

• scan its environment and analyse information
• develop appropriate strategies and prioritise
  them
• execute its strategies
• know that its strategies are deployed as planned
• know if their strategies are having the
  planned-for effects and know if they are having
  undesired effects
• take appropriate actions in the light of the
  monitoring information they generate
• Know if the action they take and the information
  they monitor on the actions they take inform the
  development of objectives and strategies and the
  best ways to deploy them.

• be largely narrative in content
• focus on outcomes over processes
• include simple, easy to read summaries
• provide clear and unambiguous judgements
• give varying levels of detail depending on the
  audience, that is, able to identify local or
• neighbourhood issues, high level summaries or
  detailed analysis
• provide supporting contextual and performance
  information
• have a strong focus on locally identified
  priorities and
• be clear about responsibility and accountability.

12
Direction of Travel

• Great in theory little evidence that it works?
• Significant proportion of authorities want it to
  reflect not predict progress which bit of
  direction of travel do they not get?
• Should an assessment of the effectiveness of both
  strategy formulation and the effectiveness of
  strategy execution

13
Use of Resources

• Proportionality, fewer (10 not 13), not all each
  year
• managing finances, governing the business and
  managing resources (human an natural) together
  help assess Value For Money
• In AC speak resources tangible resources ie
  limited explicit assessment of the essential
  intangible resources

What does natural resources mean?
14
Inspection Results

• Inspectorates taking a risk based and coordinated
  approach
• Some scepticism in AC consultation responses

15
Elements of a good PM system

• 1. A sub - system for setting objectives and
  thinking through connections to strategies
• 2. A sub - system for collecting and analysing
  information
• 3. A sub - system for taking appropriate action
• 4. A sub - system for learning and adjustments
  (i.e. a feedback system that goes back to step 1)