Improving Scottish Local Government Benchmarking In Scotland Public Services Reform Inquiry: Strand 2 – Benchmarking & Performance Measurement Scottish Parliament 10/09/12 Ronnie Hinds & Mark McAteer

SOLACE/ IS Benchmarking Project Purpose To support SOLACE (Scotland) to drive improvement in LG benchmarking To develop a comparative performance support framework for Scottish LG To support councils in targeting transformational/ change resources to areas of greatest impact – efficiency (costs)/ productivity/ outcomes Focus on ‘Big ticket’ areas of spend plus corporate services

SOLACE/ IS Benchmarking Project Operating Principles Consensus – agreement by all councils Can openers – raise issues/ focus attention on differences & to support councils to collaborate in exploring reasons behind differences Comparability – similar councils/ services on key performance criteria

SOLACE/ IS Benchmarking Project The Starting Point Project initiated summer 2010 Develop service grouping for managing the analysis – Children’s Services; Corporate Services; Social Work; Culture & Leisure: Environmental; Housing; Corporate Asset Management Indicator criteria: comparable across councils/ services; materially help improve performance Sub criteria: - relevant- unambiguous- timely data - accessible - consistent- cost effective to collect - statistically robust

SOLACE/ IS Benchmarking Project The Outputs 47 indicators where data is available, reliable & consistent – 8 indicators require further development work Focus on cost/ outputs/ customer satisfaction - Children’s Services - Corporate Services - Social Work - Culture and Leisure Services - Environmental Services - Housing - Corporate: Assets & Property

SOLACE/ IS Benchmarking Project Data 2010/ 11 base year with 3 years previous data (07/08 – 09/10) to support interpretation; cash & real term changes; Scottish mean & median figures Local Financial Return (LFR) core data component plus other ‘quality’/ performance data sources e.g. Statutory Performance Indicators Service support costs key area of data weakness - corporate & service based support costs; corporate services (assets & ICT)

‘Family’ groupings Need to get beyond data - ‘like for like’ comparisons Examined existing methodologies – CIPFA; Education Scotland; Welsh LG Data Unit Categories& - socio economic: population: education: variables housing: social care SOLACE/ IS Benchmarking

SOLACE/ IS Benchmarking Project Data Analysis/ Interpretation/ Improvement Avoiding simplistic league tables – sensitivities to media/ public reading of information Developing a common interpretive process & data standardisation Data in the round - ensuring performance/ finance/ service links; unpicking cost & ‘outcome’ performance relationships Situating analytical issues – small area profiling; internal & external interpretation Links to performance improvement activities – e.g. PSIF

Education: Spend Per Secondary Pupil (All)

Education: Spend Per Secondary Pupil (Minus Outliers) Median Figure Goes from £6,491 to £6,388 (-£103) Range Goes from £5,549 to £7,770 (£2221)

Education: Spend Per Secondary Pupil & Standard Grades (All)

Education: Spend Per Secondary Pupil & Standard Grades (Minus Outliers) Also results in minor shift in median performance as well as median spend

Education: Spend Per Secondary Pupil & Standard Grades (Minus Outliers) High performance/ below median spend Lower performance/ above median spend

Education: Spend Per Secondary Pupil & Standard Grades & 15% SIMD (All) Above median performance Gap to medium smaller than might have anticipated

Education: Spend Per Secondary Pupil & Standard Grades & 15% SIMD (All) Similar social structures at council level but differences in performance

But Need to Understand Snap shot data Factors of production – CPP costs; staff structure; size of schools..... Socio economics of local communities– need to understand more about how it impacts Aggregate council data – need to get below council level to truly understand what is happening Getting supporting narrative right - making sense of complexity

SOLACE/ IS Benchmarking Project Issues & Reflections Data: strong on inputs & outputs; improve outcome data; time lag Public service reform – disaggregated data; link to outcomes; evidence led service delivery options; setting priorities; benchmarking across partnerships Engaging & informing the customer – are they interested; what can they do? Role for national government: data improvement; de-cluttering landscape Role for local government: self assessment & improvement; mutual learning; self discipline; confidence building – getting system & culture right