SMART Action Plans

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• SMART Action Plans
• -Case studies
• - Achievements

17 September 2004
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CASE STUDIES
David Ward, Birmingham City Council, UK Alfons
Finkers, The Hague, NL
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• Final conference.
• 16th-17th September 2004
• The Hague

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SMART Action Plan - a driver for improvement

• David Ward
• Interim Manager Sustainable Development
• Birmingham City Council

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Context

• PRESUD process
• SMART Action Plan
• Importance of Inspection
• Partnership

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Birmingham A Complex Area
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PRESUD Process

• Improvement achieved by
• Strengths and weaknesses
• Benchmarking
• Good practice
• Allows us to show commitment

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SMART Action Plan

• 78 recommendations in first review
• Draft Plan features 15 recommendations to address
  with a range of actions
• Corporate priority to develop a plan to address
  PRESUD findings

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Importance of Inspection

• Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA)
• PRESUD takes over from Sustainability Strategy
  and Action Plan 2000 - 2005
• Helping to inform new arrangements
• Deputy Leaders role

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Partnership

• PRESUD vision to inform Districts vision
• Community Strategy under review
• Birmingham Environment Partnership key
  stakeholders
• Will take in to account findings of PRESUD
  reviews
• Conclusion

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• The achievement of the SMART Action Plans

17 September 2004
Paul Whiston Newcastle City Council
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What is SMART?

• Specific
• Measurable
• Accurate
• Relevant
• Timed
• PRESUD TARGET
• improve performance by 10 to 25

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SMART

• Controversial
• Helpful
• Meaningless
• A Hindrance
• Focusing
• Understanding
• A tool to work with

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WHY SMART?

• You can understand what you are doing
• It gives you a clear objective to work to
• Your citizens and stakeholders can see what you
  are doing and hold you to account (positive
  comment from stakeholders)
• The Review Teams have something to measure
  against

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What the evaluation found

• Its a tool, not the answer
• Needs a stronger link to a clearer report
• Needs to include challenging targets
• Qualitative results as important as SMART
• Level and scale of PRESUD/SMART achievement
  -would it happen anyway!
• SMART raises awareness and involvement
• Need to use SMART imaginatively
• Need to reflect the cities needs

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What did Cities achieve?
Total number of targets 67
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What did Cities achieve?
Total Number of targets 39
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What did Cities achieve?
Total number of targets 72
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What did the Cities achieve?
Total number of targets 178
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THE OUTCOME

• 87 of targets met or partially met
• 37 areas of monitoring had no SMART target for
  any city. Only one city had SMART targets across
  all areas
• SMART targets not seen as appropriate by some, or
  need balancing with qualitative actions
• Majority agreed that there was a need for some
  form of measurable target setting

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SMART CONCLUSIONS

• Seen as a positive tool by most, but must not be
  seen as the exclusive tool
• Measures that are qualitative are as important as
  quantitative ones
• Are only useful when they are real and there is a
  commitment to resource them
• Realistic , but challenging, targets are needed
• Teams need to get the balance right for the
  environment they work in!

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Even if you use SMART, it is only as good as
those who drive it!