Audit of Best Value and Community Planning (BV2)
The Council recently underwent a Best Value 2 review by Audit Scotland which provides a baseline for how Scottish Councils perform. Their recommendations have been accepted by the Accounts Commission who have found the Council is improving well and is well placed to deliver future improvement. The Council considered the Commission's findings on 24 June and our improvement plan is now available.
What is Best Value?
All local authorities have a duty of Best Value. The key requirement of this duty is to deliver continuous improvement in everything we do, whilst keeping an appropriate balance between quality and cost. This means that the Highland Council must have the management arrangements in place to deliver this continuous improvement.
In simple terms these arrangements mean:
- Understanding how we are performing
- Planning to improve
- Delivering the improvements
1. Understanding how we are performing
Understanding performance is about having the information available to understand where we can improve what we do. We need to get this information from a number of sources. The information below illustrates activities across the whole council.
What citizens and users think - A comprehensive public performance survey each year. In addition more targeted surveys are carried out on specific user groups or issues.
How well we use our resources - Information on budgets, performance of technology, and the use of our property and how we manage information.
How well we manage - self-assessment exercises with the senior management team against good practice.
How do we compare with other providers - Data on a comprehensive range of performance issues (These are required by the Scottish Government).
Do we meet the required standards - There are national required standards for service provision on in Education, Social Work Housing amongst others.
2. Planning to Improve
We have a range of strategic plans covering our activities with other public sector agencies, the whole council, services and specific service delivery units.
Single Outcome Agreeement
The purpose of the Single Outcome Agreement (referred to as the SOA or Agreement) is to identify areas for improvement and to deliver better outcomes for the people of the Highlands and Scotland, through specific commitments made by the Council, its community planning partners and the Scottish Government.
The document sets out the joint commitments made by the Highland Community Planning Partnership and the Scottish Government to an agreed set of outcomes. 15 local outcomes have been agreed by the Community Planning Partnership based on the needs and issues identified in the Area profile. These are cast against the 15 national outcomes.
Strengthening the Highlands
Strenghening the Highlands outlines the aims of the Administration of The Highland Council. These are to:
- Make the Highlands one of Europe’s leading regions;
- Create sustainable communities with more balanced population growth and economic development across the Highlands; and
- Build a fairer and healthier Highlands.
The document informs the strategic planning of the Council at all levels through the Corporate Plan and Service Plans.
Corporate Plan
A strategic plan of what the council as a whole is aiming to achieve over the next three years shaped by performance and the Community Plan.
Service Plans
Each Service’s strategic plan shaped by service performance and the Corporate Plan.
Operational Plans
The more detailed plans showing specifically what will be done to deliver the strategic plans.
3. Delivering the improvements
Through implementing the plans above we aim to continuously improve what we do. It is important that we monitor and evaluate our progress on an ongoing basis to check we are delivering against our own and citizen’s expectations. Monitoring delivery is done through:
- Elected members scrutinising plans and monitoring progress corporately and by service;
- Senior Management implementing plans;
- Reporting to the public (through the public performance report) on how well we are doing;
- Audit Scotland carrying out a comprehensive audit of the way we manage;
- Various inspectorates gauging the way the council manages improvement.
The Information is a simplified view of the Council’s arrangements under Best Value and if you would like more detail of the arrangements or to obtain copies of any of the documents that are referred to above, please contact Evelyn Johnston 01463 702671.