Agenda item

            The Director of City and Organisational Strategy submitted for the Committee’s consideration the undernoted report:

 

“1.0      Purpose of Report or Summary of main Issues

 

1.1       This report provides an update for Members on requirements for the Community Planning Partnership to make arrangements for monitoring and reporting, including publication of a Statement of Progress in November 2019, and application of Outcomes Based Accountability approaches in development of the performance framework for the Partnership.

 

2.0       Recommendations

 

2.1       Members are asked to:

 

a)     note the statutory requirements for the CPP to make arrangements for monitoring and reporting, including publication of a Statement of Progress in November 2019;

b)     agree to apply a pragmatic approach that focuses application of Outcomes Based Accountability to the priority areas for attention/collaborative action as identified by the CPP and the relevant delivery boards; and

c)     note that a proposal confirming this approach will be brought to the Community Planning Partnership meeting in February 2019 for agreement.

 

3.0       Main report

 

            Key Issues

 

3.1       The Local Government Act (NI) 2014 requires the council and its community planning partners to make arrangements to monitor progress against meeting the objectives of community plans and the effectiveness of the actions taken in aiming to achieve these objectives. The legislation also requires council to publish a statement of progress on progress towards the outcomes, and actions taken every two years.

 

3.2       The Department for Communities will shortly issue new guidance (expected by early December 2018) focused on the practical requirements for councils and their CP Partnerships to report on progress made on community planning.  The guidance will cover two distinct aspects:

 

a)     The expectation that the CPP arrangements for monitoring and reporting on community planning outcomes and actions should follow an outcomes based approach (particular reference is made to use of Outcomes Based Accountability); and

b)     What should be contained within the first Statement of Progress that CP Partnership must publish by 30 November 2019.

 

3.3       The general move in both local and central government in NI, wider GB and beyond is to use an outcomes based approach, in particular to drive performance improvement and efficient use of resources towards the achievement of tangible outcomes and impact for citizens.

 

3.4       The approach taken by the NI Executive in development of the draft Programme for Government and associated monitoring has been based specifically on Mark Friedman’s Outcomes Based Accountability™ (OBA) model. As a result, NI Departments and their delivery bodies, many of which are Community Planning Partners (e.g. Public Health Agency, Education Authority) are also now using, or beginning to use, the OBA methodology to frame their corporate planning, monitoring and reporting on the effectiveness and impact of services and activity.

 

3.5       It is therefore unsurprising that DfC’s guidance recommends that councils and community planning partners adopt the OBA performance framework.

 

3.6       The use of OBA is not unfamiliar to council. The undernoted notice of motion was moved by Alderman Convery (and seconded by Councillor Attwood) at council on 03 January 2017:

 

            ‘Belfast City Council notes that the Programme for Government has been developed under the Outcome Based Accountability (OBA) principles. Belfast City Council notes that two Outcome Based Accountability (OBA) pilots have been taken forward in Whiterock and Inner East, as part of the Belfast Agenda. Belfast City Council agrees to embed the OBA principles in all Council decision making processes in the Council to make sure we achieve outcomes which show measurable improvements for people and communities in every part of the city.’

 

3.7       The Council has been using the OBA methodology with partners in a variety of ways as follows:

 

·        Workshop facilitated by Mark Friedman (developer of the OBA methodology) with Members and partners (September 2014);

·        OBA Capacity building training programme with officers and partners (Spring 2015);

·        Briefings for Area Working Groups on the OBA approach and discussion of outcomes for local areas as part of AWG workshops (November 2015 and January 2016);

·        Belfast Agenda: development of a long-term citywide outcomes framework seeking to improve the quality of life over the next 20 years and align with Programme for Government population outcomes and indicators.

·        Locality planning: testing the use of OBA across the city in locality settings with communities and partners to help local people shape targeted interventions;

·        A number of Council service delivery areas (which are funded by central government) have developed (or are in process of developing) frameworks that apply OBA concepts for monitoring impact including:

o   (D)PCSP Action Plans  - DoJ;

o   Community Festivals Funding framework (in development) - DfC;

o   Peace IV programme monitoring – SEPUB.

·        As a result, monitoring and reporting arrangements for a small number of service delivery areas could be considered to align to the OBA performance management framework highlighted in the NI Audit Office Good Practice guide for performance management for outcomes.

 

            Implications for the Belfast Community Planning Partnership

 

3.8       The next meeting of the Community Planning Partnership is scheduled for February 2019. At this meeting we plan to bring a paper to partners outlining the ‘monitoring and reporting’ considerations and suggested practical arrangements that the CPP should adopt for monitoring and reporting and production of the first Statement of Progress (due by November 2019). This paper will include suggested arrangements to adopt the Performance Monitoring framework outlined in the DfC guidance document and the Northern Ireland Audit Office’s good practice guide.

 

3.9       It is important to note that officer feedback to DfC (during development of the guidance) highlighted concerns that to fully implement OBA monitoring and reporting approaches across the entire Community Plan (Belfast Agenda) would immediately create an administrative heavy approach. It is also unlikely that there would capacity within the Partnership to robustly implement this across the entire Belfast Agenda within the next 2 years.

 

3.10      Accordingly, the proposal to the CPP will be to implement a more pragmatic approach in the first instance, that embeds the principles of the new guidance (OBA approach) within the small number of priority areas of work/actions identified as areas for collaborative focus of the CPP and its delivery Boards.  In practice this will mean that Action leads and key partners will need to identify, monitor and report on performance measures that identify:

 

a.      How much did we do? (quantity of effort)

b.     How well did we do it? (quality of effort)

c.      Is anyone better off? (quantity and quality of effect/impact)

 

 

               Summary of key elements of Outcomes Based Accountability^TM

 

3.11      As the Living Here Board (and shortly the Working & Learning Board) are already progressing detailed action planning and delivery in a number of focused areas, we will work with the Action leads/ key partners to ensure the detailed action plans consider and utilise the OBA approach where appropriate. This will seek to identify appropriate performance measures that more clearly demonstrate the contribution to Belfast Agenda outcomes as a result of actions taken by the Partnership.

 

            Proposed Next Steps

 

3.12      To ensure the CPP’s responsibilities relating to monitoring and reporting are addressed, the following next steps and indicative timeframes are proposed:

 

-       Dec – Feb 2019 (and ongoing thereafter): Support Boards and relevant Task groups in development of Action plans to apply OBA principles for monitoring and reporting of their impact

-       Feb 2019, Paper to CPP on new DfC guidance and implications – CPP to agree to apply to the small number priority areas of focus

-       Spring 2019 Develop appropriate monitoring and reporting framework for CPP going forward

-       Spring/Summer 2019 - Development of reporting systems and tools for partnership reporting

-       November 2019 – Publish Statement of Progress

 

 

            Financial & Resource Implications

 

3.13      There are no additional resource implications as a result of this report. Alignment of resources to the delivery of the Belfast Agenda is part of the ongoing organisational and financial planning processes.

 

            Equality or Good Relations Implications/Rural Needs Assessment

 

3.14      The Belfast Agenda has been subject to an Equality Impact Assessment at a strategic level and a Rural Needs impact statement at the time of its publication. Application of an outcomes based approach, particularly in relation to monitoring of outcomes at a population level, impacts on s75 groups, along with more emphasis on monitoring of impact of actions taken by the Partnership will assist future equality assessments and strategic planning/decision making.”

 

            The Committee adopted the recommendations.