Group Feedback

Performance & Quality Improvement

• Diane Robertson• Jim Lamond• Alan Forsyth• Marina Naylor• Colin Shand• Gavin McGregor• Margaret O'Connor• Anthony Gillespie

PERFORMANCE AND QUALITY IMPROVEMENT GROUP

• Maree Johnstone• Paul Raffaelli• Anne Bisset• Andrew Strickland• John Cunningham• Brian Duncan• Don Ledingham

• Current Practice• Review of Options• Public Service Improvement Framework (PSIF)• How Good is Our Council?• Our core principles• Visit to Perth and Kinross Council• Visit to Clackmannanshire Council• Option Appraisal• Our selection• East Lothian Performs• Next Steps

Our Report

No overall model of quality evaluation Balanced scorecards No quality measurements across council

to allow comparison

Over 50% of council using an HMIe style evaluation:

Education Social Work Child Protection Community Learning and Development

Our Current Practice

1. Public Service Improvement Framework (PSIF)

2. ‘Project management’ approach

3. ‘Dedicated staff’ approach

4. Councils using PSIF have allowed between 2 and 3 years

5. to assess all Council services.

6. Assessors require training

7. Four point scale

8. £7K-10K per year

9. Promoted by Improvement Service

10. Schools exempt from process

Option 1 - Public Service Improvement Framework (PSIF)

Option 2 - How Good is our Council?

1. Developed by Perth and Kinross Council

2. Approved by Scottish Government

3. Based on HMIe model

4. Uses a range of quality Indicators

5. Self evaluation foundation

6. Six point performance scale

7. Undertaken by all members of staff

Our Core PrinciplesThe following principles were identified as the most important:1. Less bureaucracy – and keep it simple2. Outcome based.3. Evidence based.4. Any system must promote a sense of ownership and involvement of all members of staff5. Clear outcomes .6. Leadership – it is vital that people feel that they belong to an organisation that values

quality improvement.

Other principles which were identified as being crucial to the system we would intend to implement in East Lothian were as follows:1. Consistency.2. A culture of structured self evaluation.3. A customer focus.4. Fitting in with existing / compatible formats.5. Accountability.6. Target related.7. Efficiency – linking inputs and outputs.8. Honest – i.e. Safe to be honest.9. Tasks and standards of delivery should be clear.10.Relevance to all services.11.Allow benchmarking.12.An essential feature of good practice in East Lothian.

• Perth and Kinross Council structure aligns closely with East Lothian Council.

• The self-evaluation process is clearly about service improvement and the pursuit of excellence and not an exercise in itself.

• They had considered the EFQM model but had chosen to develop their ‘How Good Is Our Council’ model.

• The Council staff received training from the HMIE in the application of the model.

• They have developed a process and have now repeated this twice to produce further evidence and to refine the process.

• The outcomes of the process feeds into service improvement plans.

• It was recognised that some services within the Council are coming from a low base in terms of self evaluation.

• If a common issue was identified by the majority of departments, that would be fed into the Corporate plan as supplement to the Corporate plan under the banner ‘Organisational Change and Improvement Plan’.

Perth and Kinross Council – How Good is Our Council

Perth and Kinross Council – How Good is Our Council (cont'd)

• The ‘How Good Is Our Council’ model uses 6 key questions.

• Rather than it being seen as a static process, it needs to be dynamicwith the notion of building an evidence collection process into the system.

• The application of the ‘How Good Is Our Council’ model does require a change of mindset.

• There is a need to plan and manage the manner in which we systematically collect evidence

• We need to get the second and third tier managers on board from the beginning.

• Process undertaken annually

• No cynicism from staff

• Self evaluation completed against all of the quality indicators..

Clackmannanshire PSIF Model• The model developed at Clackmannanshire is a pragmatic approach to PSIF.

• Due to limited resources they were not in a position to implement the full PSIF model which would be an issue for East Lothian Council.

• The process is driven by the Business Change team.

• They experienced a lack of support from the improvement service.

• They developed an e-model and discarded that provided by PSIF.

• Previously used EFQM but this proved to be resource intensive, for example Fife Council have 50 validators trained up with the EFQM model.

• They use a diagonal slice for the area they are reviewing but seem to be based upon perception as opposed to other, more concrete evidence.

• Facilitators work with a service to help them undertake the evaluation.

• The facilitator writes the report.

• Lead assessors come from the external team as opposed to being from within the service.

• Reports vary in consistency depending upon who writes the report.

• Guidance papers from the improvement service are good.

• The system fits in with Single Outcome Agreement.

• Time scale – the evaluation takes place over a 14 week process from start to finish.

• As it rolls out, they have concerns about their capacity to maintain it.

• The main difference with EFQM is that not all need to be trained.

• The process is definitely led from the centre.

• There was a question about what would happen with a department within the 3 year process between their evaluations.

Clackmannanshire PSIF Model – cont'd

Option Appraisal

The following criteria were weighted in favour of Perth and Kinross:• Less bureaucracy• Outcome based• Evidence based• Ownership and involvement of staff• Promotion of organisational values• Culture of structured self evaluation• Fitting in with our existing models• Safe to be honest

The following criteria were seen to be in favour of the Clackmannanshire model:• Consistency of approach and efficiency

The following criteria were neither thought to be fulfilled by either model• Customer focus• Accountability• Target related• Tasks and standards being clear• Of relevance to all services• Allows benchmarking• An essential feature of good practice

Our Selection

How Good is Our Council?

• Link with East Lothian Performs

• Promote a culture of self evaluation

• Share good practice

• Learn from each other

• Potential of the validated model

NEXT STEPS

• Develop an implementation strategy