Improvement Service

A paper from the David Hume Institute which considers differences in expenditure and performance between service areas across Scottish local authorities. It suggests that there is a wide variance in the performance of local authorities in relation to service provision, in terms of: the amount of spending which takes place to provide a service; the level of service provided; and how effective that service is in meeting local needs and Scottish Government targets. It looks in particular at variations in spending for social care, education, waste collection, disposal and recycling, and council tax collection and argues that any shift to improve the average performance of local authorities' average performance could deliver significant savings.

Paper from Local Government Improvement and Development and the Centre for Public Scrutiny which presents ten questions that can be used by overview and scrutiny committees to scope a review of all services relevant to looked after children, to gather information during the course of the review, and frame evidence sessions with witnesses. It covers commissioning, educational attainment, the health and wellbeing of children in care, adoption and fostering arrangements, standards of residential care, support for care leavers, and the effectiveness of the workforce.

This guide identifies key elements in the transformation programme currently taking place within adult social care that will allow scrutiny committees to assess the extent to which their local authority is planning, commissioning and delivering better social care. It should help enable overview and scrutiny committees to consider the whole process of reform, to see how the elements fit together and how they impact on each other and the wider provision of social care and health. The guide was commissioned from the Centre for Public Scrutiny by the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA).

Summary of the key recommendations from a peer review of Renfrewshire Council's Finance and IT and Housing and Property Services departments. The review focused on rent collection, rent arrears, preventative measures and debt management. The areas considered by the peer review team during the review were leadership and governance, performance management, stakeholder management and organisational development. A good practice guide to rent collection (index.php?option=com_docman task=doc_download gid=2224 ItemId=833), prepared by Renfrewshire Council  and the five peer councils which took part in the review, is also available.

This Guide has been prepared by Renfrewshire Council and the five peer councils (East Ayrshire, City of Edinburgh, Falkirk, North Ayrshire and North Lanarkshire) to highlight examples of good practice within their councils in relation to rent collection, rent recovery, debt prevention and performance management. The Guide has been structured to enable other councils to consider each example of good practice and to indicate whether or not it is already in place. In the event that a good practice example is not evident within the council, it is recommended that the council considers the feasibility of introducing the good practice as part of its improvement planning.

Guide to self-evaluation, tailored to social work, from the Social Work Inspection Agency and the Improvement Service. This guide represents an evolution of the SWIA performance inspection model (PIM) from an inspection tool to a self-evaluation tool. In this guide, the Performance Inspection Model becomes the Performance Improvement Model. The guide can be used on its own or in conjunction with other quality management systems.

Guidance for councils and their community planning partners on how to improve outcomes for looked after children and young people and care leavers. The report indicates what looked after young people want from their 'corporate family' - the local authority services, and associated agencies, which are responsible for meeting their needs and offers advice specific to each of the services and agencies which need to work together to act as a good 'corporate parent'. It also contains advice for elected members, local authority chief executives, the Scottish Government, community planning partnerships, the criminal justice system and independent service providers. 

This report from the Policy Research Institute (PRI), commissioned by Communities and Local Government, investigates how local authorities report their performance information to citizens and what support is available to assist them with this task.

This paper reviews UK and international public sector performance frameworks and indicators and highlights innovation from across the world. The report provides details on the most innovative and comprehensive performance frameworks from which Scottish local government can learn. The report begins by reviewing current practice across the UK, and in particular the new performance framework under development in England. This new framework is clearly signalling a shift from current performance assessment to that which focuses upon outcomes and area assessments. The report then goes on to look at international approaches to performance assessment and measurement within the public sectors in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the USA.

This paper sets out the learning that can be drawn from the Outcome Agreement (OA) pathfinder project that took place over 2006-2007 to inform the rollout of Single Outcome Agreements to all local authorities in Scotland. The paper highlights potential for further learning to emerge from the pathfinder process and that there is a continuing role for the pathfinder councils in the new national approach.

Independent review of the role of scrutiny within the public sector, chaired by Professor Lorne Crerar. The report outlines how public services could be given greater responsibility to measure their performance to comply with regulation and calls for independent scrutiny of the NHS. It makes 42 recommendations to improve the role of scrutiny within the public sector.

An overview of Citistat including: how to recognise a Citistat; the five visible features of Citistat; what purpose does Citistat serve; and, what is the theory behind Citistat.

This paper illustrates how you can adopt and adapt an approach to meet organisational requirements that clearly demonstrates actions to sustain improved performance. The actions are centred around three themes: creating the performance framework; driving performance improvement; and enhancing future performance.

Report on research into the burden and benefits of external audit and inspection in Scottish local government. This report was commissioned against a backdrop of expressed concern amongst Scottish local government that the ‘burden’ of external scrutiny is now greater than the positive benefits derived from the process. Six ‘case study’ councils were examined to look at their internal corporate response to external scrutiny and gauge their views on: the added value that external scrutiny gives corporate and service leadership; the corporate impact and opportunity costs of external scrutiny alternative internal audit arrangements if external scrutiny were radically reduced; what any new external arrangements should look like; how external scrutiny could support the reform and modernisation process; and the role and performance of inspectors and customer focus of the process. The Improvement Service also hosted a web based survey of the remaining 26 councils who were not part of the case study process.

In January 2007, COSLA, SOLACE and the Improvement Service commissioned Brodies LLP Management Consultancy team to undertake research into the burden and benefits of external audit and inspection in Scottish local government. This report was commissioned against a backdrop of expressed concern amongst Scottish local government that the ‘burden’ of external scrutiny is now greater than the positive benefits derived from the process. Six ‘case study’ councils were examined to look at their internal corporate response to external scrutiny and gauge their views on: the added value that external scrutiny gives corporate and service leadership; the corporate impact and opportunity costs of external scrutiny alternative internal audit arrangements if external scrutiny were radically reduced; what any new external arrangements should look like; how external scrutiny could support the reform and modernisation process; and the role and performance of inspectors and customer focus of the process. The Improvement Service also hosted a web based survey of the remaining 26 councils who were not part of the case study process. This document is a summary of the findings of this research.