2008-09
August 2009
Author: Nick Selwyn
Ref: 534A2009
Translating strategy into action
Torfaen County Borough Council
Corporate priorities are clearly reflected in service plans but inconsistencies in the delivery and
monitoring of outcomes mean that priorities have not always been realised.
Contents
Summary and recommendations
4
Detailed report
6
The Council‟s corporate priorities are clearly reflected in service delivery plans
and personal work plans
6
The delivery of corporate priorities is weakened by a lack of clarity around the
ownership of outcomes and inconsistent partnership working
8
Weaknesses in the Council‟s performance monitoring mean it is not always
clear whether priorities are being delivered
10
The Council is making changes to improve its service planning process but it is
too early to judge success
11
Status of this report
This document has been prepared for the internal use of Torfaen County Borough Council as part of work performed in
accordance with statutory functions, the Code of Audit and Inspection Practice and the „Statement of Responsibilities‟
issued by the Auditor General for Wales.
No responsibility is taken by the Wales Audit Office (the Auditor General and his staff) and, where applicable, the
appointed auditor in relation to any member, director, officer or other employee in their individual capacity, or to any third
party.
In the event of receiving a request for information to which this document may be relevant, attention is drawn to the Code
of Practice issued under section 45 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The section 45 Code sets out the practice in
the handling of requests that is expected of public authorities, including consultation with relevant third parties. In relation
to this document, the Auditor General for Wales (and, where applicable, his appointed auditor) is a relevant third party.
Any enquiries regarding disclosure or re-use of this document should be sent to the Wales Audit Office at
[email protected].
Page 2 of 12
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action
Summary
Page 3 of 12
1.
In 2007 the Wales Audit Office undertook an assessment of the extent to which
the corporate priorities of Torfaen County Borough Council (the Council) were
embedded into service plans.
2.
The study concluded that the Council had a newly published Corporate Plan and
was developing high-level priorities but the Council needed to ensure that for
each of these priorities there was a clearly-defined and measurable outcome, as
well as a clear set of actions required to deliver that outcome.
3.
The Council‟s corporate planning system requires services to identify how their
activity supports delivery of the Corporate Plan. Individual service activity is set
out in service plans. Our previous study identified that the links between individual
service plans and Corporate Plan priorities was weak. The approach to service
planning changed during the course of this work. This assessment primarily
focuses on the older service planning system.
4.
The work focussed on assessing how well different services were contributing
towards delivery of the Council‟s Corporate Plan priorities using the cross local
authority methodology developed for the Strategy into Action work.
5.
We concluded that corporate priorities are clearly reflected in service plans
but inconsistencies in the delivery and monitoring of outcomes mean that
priorities have not always been realised.
6.
We concluded this because we found that:

the Council‟s corporate priorities are clearly reflected in service delivery
plans and personal work plans;

the delivery of corporate priorities is weakened by a lack of clarity around
the ownership of outcomes and inconsistent partnership working;

weaknesses in the Council‟s performance monitoring mean it is not always
clear whether priorities are being delivered; and

the Council is making changes to improve its service planning process but it
is too early to judge success.
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action
Recommendations
7.
We have also made a number of recommendations for the Council to implement:
Recommendations
R1
Make sure service improvement plans (SIPs):





are SMART outcome-focused;
have named officers with clear responsibilities for delivery of all targets;
have milestones to enable an evaluation of progress; and
clearly identify the resources available to support delivery of actions.
R2
Raise awareness of SIPs with all staff and clearly identify how they contribute to
delivering Corporate Plan priorities.
R3
Make clear how partners contribute to delivery of individual targets and actions
and ensure delivery is monitored and outcomes realised.
R4
Develop and implement a comprehensive range of performance measures for
each outcome to enable the Council to demonstrate progress in delivering
Corporate Plan priorities by individual services overtime.
R5
Introduce an effective performance management framework that includes as a
minimum:



Page 4 of 12
clearly relate activity to delivering the Corporate Plan priorities;
milestones to enable an evaluation of progress;
regular monitoring and evaluation to manage delivery; and
improved performance indicators and measures of success to enable an
evaluation of an achieved outcome to take place.
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action
Detailed Report
The Council’s corporate priorities are clearly reflected in
service delivery plans and personal work plans
The Council has set out how the work of individual officers links to
delivery of Corporate Plan priorities
8.
Torfaen‟s Corporate Plan seeks to link the overarching Council objectives to
personal work plans to make clear the contribution an individual can make
towards achieving corporate outcomes. The Council refers to this as the “Golden
Thread”. This identifies how an individual‟s work contributes to the work of the
team; how the team‟s work contributes to the service area; and how the service
area contributes to delivering the Corporate Plan priorities – Exhibit 1.
Exhibit 1: Torfaen’s corporate planning structure – the “Golden Thread”
The Council‟s corporate planning process seeks to link the contribution of individual
officer‟s work to delivery of Council priorities and outcomes.
Source: Torfaen County Borough Council
Service plans are linked to Corporate Plan priorities
9.
Page 5 of 12
The Council‟s Corporate Plan has five priorities. These are:

Priority 1 - improve services for vulnerable people and improve health
outcomes for everyone by promoting healthier lifestyles;

Priority 2 - reduce crime and antisocial behaviour and take action to help
people feel safe in their neighbourhoods;
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action
10.

Priority 3 - improve the quality, variety and affordability of housing and
reduce the level of homelessness;

Priority 4 - improve the quality of teaching and learning for young people
and other students and to equip citizens of all ages with the necessary skills
for employment and the regeneration of their local communities; and

Priority 5 - improve waste management and increase recycling creating a
cleaner and more energy efficient area.
Under each of these priorities is a series of outcome statements – measures used
to judge success in delivering the Corporate Plan. Each of the outcome
statements has a range of measures of success to judge performance over time
in delivering the Corporate Plan priorities – Exhibit 2. This is an improvement on
previous corporate plans.
Exhibit 2: Example of Corporate Plan priority, outcome and measures of success
The Council has created outcomes and measures of success to enable it to judge how
successful it is in delivering its corporate priorities
Priority
Outcomes
1 - Improve
services for
vulnerable people
and improve health
outcomes for
everyone by
promoting healthier
lifestyles.
Improved
services for
vulnerable
people.
Improved
health
outcomes for
everyone by
promoting
healthier
lifestyles.
Measures of success










Children in Torfaen are safe and secure.
People in Torfaen are safe from domestic
violence.
People in Torfaen live independently.
People in Torfaen live free from poverty.
People in Torfaen are physically active.
People in Torfaen eat healthily.
People in Torfaen are not misusing alcohol and
drugs.
People in Torfaen are not smoking.
People in Torfaen adopt healthy sexual
behaviours.
Conceptions in Torfaen are planned and
wanted.
Source: Torfaen County Borough Council, Corporate Plan Update 2009
11.
Each service is required to develop a Service Organisational Development (SOD)
Plan which captures detail about how the service is intending to deliver the
Corporate Plan priorities. Service Organisational Development plans are intended
to cover in detail the proceeding year and also to outline broad areas for action in
future.
12.
Council guidance requires SOD plans to provide detail about how the outcome
measures identified under each of the five Corporate Plan priorities will be
achieved. SOD plans must also include information about how:

Page 6 of 12
a service intends to use its resources (financial, human, ICT and assets) to
meet corporate plan priorities; and
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action

13.
commitment to equalities, customer focus and health and safety are
maintained and streamlined in service delivery.
We reviewed the SOD plans in three service areas to determine whether they
reflected the main relevant issues within the Corporate Plan. The service areas
we considered were the Regeneration Service, Housing Service and Children‟s
Services. We found all SOD plans made clear links to the Corporate Plan
priorities. The Regeneration Service has seven distinct teams, each with their
own SOD plan which related the team‟s activity to several priority areas in the
Corporate Plan. The Regeneration Service identifies itself as contributing to most
of the corporate priorities. The Housing Services SOD plan linked specifically to
Corporate Plan priority three but also recognised a broader contribution to
delivering several others. The Children services SOD Plan focussed specifically
on priorities one and four.
The delivery of corporate priorities is weakened by a lack of
clarity around the ownership of outcomes and inconsistent
partnership working
Responsibility for delivering individual outcomes is not always
specified in service plans
Page 7 of 12
14.
We found wide variation in how services supported delivery of their SOD plans.
The Regeneration Service has a high level of commitment and ownership within
each of the seven service teams with each Head of Service responsible for
delivery. There is cross service commitment at senior manager level and general
understanding of linkages between individual teams and managers at all levels to
address identified priorities. In individual service areas there is high staff
awareness of their own SOD plan but much less so across all Regeneration SOD
plans other than at senior levels.
15.
Housing SOD plans have a high level of commitment and ownership but there are
also some weaknesses. The plans do not identify the lead officers responsible for
delivery, although the plans are developed by the managers responsible for the
three service teams in housing. There is no divisional overview and some key
tasks, such as establishing the new housing service post-stock transfer, have not
being captured.
16.
In Children‟s Services there is also high-level awareness of the SOD plans at a
managerial level. However operational staff are not familiar with all aspects of
individual SOD plans, especially the priorities of other teams within their division.
Importantly, team leaders are seen as key to delivering the SOD plans and these
generally have ownership of delivery.
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action
Delivery of priorities is affected by the Council’s inconsistent
approach to partnership working
17.
The delivery of some corporate priorities is dependent on the Council working
with partner organisations. The Council sees the Corporate Plan as setting out
how its services will contribute to delivering the priorities for Torfaen linked to the
emerging local Service board Agenda and other key partnerships. Within this
framework the five Corporate Plan priorities are seen as the Council‟s contribution
to improving the quality of life for citizens in Torfaen across all public and
voluntary sector services.
18.
In terms of the individual services that we considered in our review, there are a
variety of approaches in place for partnership working. Some services are
working well with partners and are identifying the important contribution partners
can and will make to deliver the Council‟s priorities. These include identification of
desired partnership outcomes in relation to for example the:
19.
20.

Community Strategy;

Single Children and Young People's Plan; and

Health Social Care and Wellbeing Strategy.
Some services are working with partners but have not identified how partners
contribute to delivering corporate or service priorities and no ongoing assessment
of progress is evident. An example of these issues is in relation to the Local
Housing Forum, where the Service and Housing Forum are not able to
demonstrate:

the outcome of their activity in many areas; and

whether actions are either effective or in the longer term have resulted in
improvement for service users.
The Council is looking to manage interface with major partnerships under the new
post of Head of Public Service Support Unit. This post will involve a new focus on
supporting partnership working to deliver corporate priorities.
Weaknesses in the Council’s performance monitoring mean it is
not always clear whether priorities are being delivered
There are weaknesses in the Council’s arrangements for performance
monitoring
21.
Page 8 of 12
There is a mixed picture of Cabinet, Scrutiny and senior manager (Green Team)
input in monitoring and delivering SOD plans. Regeneration SOD plans are
monitored within the seven service areas by departmental team/Chief Officer and
also by Scrutiny Committee, Green Team and Cabinet. In general, monitoring is
focussed on specific actions, which are easier to measure than outcomes,
although both delivery of actions and an assessment of activity against outcomes
are measured.
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action
22.
Managers in Housing and Children‟s Services are required to submit six month
progress summaries within the service to Departmental Management Team. The
challenge from Scrutiny is less effective as the committee only receives a report
on the outcome of activity at year end. This means it is not able to regularly
scrutinise, influence or judge progress on delivery. In addition, monitoring of
performance focuses on delivering the objectives set within the SOD plans not the
priorities of the Corporate Plan. In Children‟s Services some monitoring activity
takes place within the Children and Young People‟s Partnership (CYPP) including
monitoring of the single plan for children. This may result in a high level of
duplication of activity.
Poor quality performance measures and outcomes mean it has
not been possible to assess whether priorities have been
delivered
SOD plans are not always SMART and proposed actions do not
always link to delivery of Corporate Plan priorities
Page 9 of 12
23.
The review identified that it is not possible to measure whether the Corporate
Plan outcomes are being realised. For example, it is difficult to specify what the
intended outcomes of some actions in the Regeneration SOD plan are and in
others external programmes influence activity. For example, much activity relates
to the Heads of Valley initiative. This is primarily driven by external factors and
priorities which may not always reflect Torfaen‟s Corporate Plan priorities.
24.
The review of the Housing SOD plan targets found weak links between statutory
plans and the Corporate Plan and no consideration of the role of partners. There
are also limitations in targets and no clarity on what success will look like. Whilst
the Housing SOD plan reflects the Corporate Plan outcome measures, delivery is
not always comprehensive. For example, the SOD plan relates to Priority three
but proposed actions are not comprehensive. Only some elements of affordable
housing around allocations, homelessness and new housing development are
captured and it does not include any reference to the affordability of
accommodation or tenancy enforcement.
25.
Similarly, the Children‟s SOD plans are not SMART or outcome focussed. Not all
activities have SMART targets and a number especially in the single children plan
are very ambitious and unlikely to be delivered based on current performance.
Children Services SOD plan relates to the Corporate Plan but the measures are
more clearly linked to delivery of local targets and actions rather than strategic
corporate outcomes.
26.
No resources are identified within any SOD plan to support delivery. Links are
made to the annual budget setting process but the lack of a medium and long
term financial planning does not support delivery of activity. This is a priority for
the Council to address.
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action
The quality of performance measures and lack of outcome focus has
not enabled the Council to always demonstrate delivery of Corporate
Plan priorities over time
27.
The Regeneration Service has only been in its current form for three years and
SOD plans have changed and developed over this time. The service has clear
performance measures and effective systems to monitor delivery. Consequently it
can demonstrate that individual actions are being delivered.
28.
Some measures relate specifically to achieving a set action (for example, secure
funding for a project). Others have time related targets/measures which can be
compared over time providing action and measure is continued unchanged into
future years (for example create X number of jobs in that year).
29.
The Housing Service, at the time of the review, has been in existence less than a
year. The pre-stock transfer Housing Service operated SOD plans and there is
evidence of the service delivering the targets set in the past. However, because
targets were not always expressed as outcomes and linked directly to the
corporate plan, this was difficult to evidence. Each SOD plan objective included a
range of key measures, monitoring arrangements and relevant key performance
indicators (KPIs).
30.
The quality of the measures to monitor success varies. Some are numeric and
specific and directly link to the headline objective and could be described as
outcome focussed. However in other cases the information referred to a range of
processes to elicit information not delivery of the outcome. For example,
monitoring effectiveness through the Strategic Housing Forum.
31.
At team manager level in Children services there is awareness of the importance
of delivering the SOD plan. The analysis of performance to date has been to
ensure targets within individual SOD plans are delivered and there has been
evidence of this happening. However it is not clear how managers highlight and
report where activity has not resulted in delivery due to service pressures and
resource limitations. It is also difficult to identify clear service improvements that
have resulted in some activity because of the different processes taking place for
the SOD Plan and the single children's plan.
The Council is making changes to improve its service planning
process but it is too early to judge success
32.
Page 10 of 12
A new system is currently being rolled out for 2009-10 which involves replacing
SOD plans with SIP. Service improvement plans aim to provide a standardised
format to ensure a consistent approach to service planning across the Council.
Service improvement plans guidance also aims to make the linkages between
activity and outcome clear by requiring services to clearly identify activities which
are delivering the Corporate Plan outcomes. The new plans are to be focussed on
the headline activities which are actually delivering defined outcomes.
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action
33.
Page 11 of 12
The Council has also recognised in its guidance that not every service will
contribute to the delivery of every outcome. Consequently the contribution of
support services such as Human Resources, ICT and Accounting for example in
supporting frontline services to deliver the Corporate Plan has been identified. It is
too early to state whether the new system is addressing the weaknesses
associated with SOD plans but the guidance is focussed on addressing areas of
concern highlighted in this report.
Torfaen County Borough Council - Translating strategy into action
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