Corporate Strategy of Hampshire County Council

Welcome to Hampshire County Council's Corporate Strategy webpages. The pages are intended to inform the public, staff, Members, partner organisations, inspectorates and central government and aim to do two main things.

1. Set out the Council's priorities to address the needs and aspirations of Hampshire's residents
2. Provide a report of the Council's overall performance and future plans.

Hampshire County Council is a top performing authority, given the highest possible scoring of 'performing excellently', through the CAA process by government. Our ambition is to continually improve our performance in the interests of the communities we serve.

Looking after Hampshire, our job is to ensure the county is safe and secure and to work towards enhancing the County's quality of place. Looking out for our residents, we want to work with them to ensure they feel safe and secure and  to maximise their wellbeing. Our aim is to lead and work in partnership with other organisations to remove barriers and improve choices whilst encouraging people to make their own decisions on the way they access services.

Our priorities are:

• Hampshire safer and more secure for all - This is our overarching priority and is about developing and supporting stronger, safer communities for all by protecting vulnerable people, maximizing safety in the places we live, helping young people to live positive lives and helping diverse communities to feel secure.
• Maximising wellbeing - This priority is about maintaining and improving quality of life and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to support themselves, be active in their community and have access to the services they need, whilst knowing that should things go wrong, we are there to support them.
• Enhancing our quality of place - This priority is all about making the county a good place to be by protecting local distinctiveness and diversity, ensuring excellent facilities, respecting Hampshire’s heritage and planning proactively for the future.

These three priorities reflect the political vision and direction of our publicly elected councillors and give a clear statement of the focus of our work as a local authority.

The way in which we aim to work is encompassed in "Driving Success  391kb" - Hampshire County Council's Performance Management Framework.

The priorities feed into the Corporate Improvement Plan, which is composed of three areas and monitored quarterly. Further information can be found on the Corporate Improvement Plan webpages.

How we reached our Corporate Strategy priorities

The Corporate Strategy priorities are based on a detailed understanding of the needs of Hampshire's communities and is supported by effective partnerships. Through our market research and consultation programme, we have listened to what residents of Hampshire have to say and what their priorities for improvement are. These alongside a wide range of other information including that relating to the demography of Hampshire and the financial resources avaliable to the Council have helped shape its priorities.

Strong links have been made with partners with mutually supportive priorities across a number of key partnerships including the Hampshire Senate, which oversees the Hampshire Local Area Agreement (LAA) and the Sustainable Community Strategy, the Children and Young People Partnership, the Health and Wellbeing Partnership and the County Strategy Group for Crime and Disorder.

Priorities Timeline

In 2004 the Hampshire Community Strategy was published and work began on the second partnership Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA2);

In 2008, the County Council approved the Sustainable Community Strategy.  This was endorsed by the Hampshire Senate in 2009.  The Local Area Agreement (LAA) was agreed and Best Value Performance Indicators were replaced by a new National Indicator Set.

In 2009 the second partnership-based Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA2) was concluded. The Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) replaced the former Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA).

About Hampshire and its issues

For most of its residents Hampshire is an attractive place to live, full of opportunities. It is relatively prosperous, has a wealth of natural and historical assets and thriving arts. Crime is lower, people are healthier, and educational standards are higher than the UK average.

This can often mask the fact that Hampshire also has its problems - some of these are national, some common to the South East and others are unique to the county.

Hampshire's population is growing and ageing. Whilst better medical services are enabling more people with significant social care needs to live longer, this creates a sharply increasing need for social care services. This is a problem we share with many authorities across the UK, but suffer more severely than most.

Like many south eastern counties, Hampshire can suffer from its own success. Rising prosperity and a rising population make increasing demands on the environment, on transport and on housing. Business surveys show that the key difficulties facing Hampshire businesses include the high cost of housing, skills shortages, transport congestion and a shortage of space to grow. At the same time, finding acceptable locations for new housing development and providing the appropriate infrastructure is a major concern for residents and the planning authorities.

Hampshire, has also suffered from the impact of the current recession. The County Council is working alongside other public services in Hampshire to seek to mitigate against the effects of the recession wherever it can.

Hampshire is a large county in terms of both population and area and this can hide important differences between communities and locations.

Although crime is relatively low, surveys show that fear of crime and security in general is a key concern for the residents of Hampshire. This includes serious crime such as burglary and robbery and also extends to antisocial behaviour and activities ranging from drunkenness and vandalism through to aggressive doorstep selling. Again it is important to understand the problem in detail. While more deprived areas do tend to suffer more crime, antisocial behaviour is also a problem of affluent areas.

More demographic and economic information is available from our Hampshire statistics web pages.

Our Partnerships

We use a wide range of partnerships and networks to enhance our capacity and jointly deliver improved outcomes. Our partners include businesses, the voluntary and community sector, health, the police and fire services, district, parish and town councils. Our key strategic partnerships include:

• The Hampshire Senate

• Health and Wellbeing Partnership

• Hampshire Children's Trust which produced the Children and Young People's Plan (2009-12)

Our Environmental Footprint

Hampshire County Council assesses its environmental footprint as part of its wider sustainability performance framework, a bespoke methodology using the Aalborg Commitments which has received national recognition by the IDeA as best practice. The Aalborg framework includes scores on how Hampshire is performing in areas including energy, water, biodiversity, soil, air & vehicle mileage. These are  aggregated to give a score for natural resources.

A particular priority has been given to reducing the County Council's carbon footprint. The Council is committed to reducing its carbon emissions in support of the Government's new overall target of 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. At its full Council meeting in November 2007, the County Council set an ambition to become carbon zero. In March 2008 the County Council's Cabinet took the first steps towards realising this ambition by agreeing a framework for addressing the Carbon Reduction Commitment in relation to its buildings and street lighting. This builds on the extensive works that the County Council has already achieved to upgrade the thermal performance of its building stock and is in addition to the efficiencies it is making in the performance of its transport management fleet.

Sources of info:

Sustainability - What the County Council is doing

HCC's Aalborg Baseline Review

IDeA recognition

The Corporate Improvement Plan

Delivering our Priorities

The Corporate Improvement Plan identifies key projects and activities which will deliver the three Corporate Strategy priorities. It is used by managers throughout the County Council when developing departmental and service plans. Ultimately actions to achieve the three priorities will find their way through departmental and service plans into individual performance plans (IPPs). This is how we will ensure that the political vision and three priorities set by Cabinet are driven through the organisation through departments and services right down to individual members of staff.

The Corporate improvement Plan is made up of three parts and is monitored quarterly:

• The 'Hard to Move' Areas – These are areas work have been identified as requiring a ‘step change’ in performance in order to meet an improved standard. They have targets and plans set over a three year period to ensure that this ambition is realised.

• The Corporate Basket – The measures in the Corporate Basket reflect outcomes which are of great importance to the County but already perform to a standard where a ‘step change’ in performance is not currently needed. In keeping with the tenets of Driving Success there is still a desire to ensure improvement, and as such the Corporate Basket areas will be monitored closely at a corporate level.

• The Hot List – These are outcomes which Hampshire County Council potentially seeks to improve. However, hot list items still require further definition and have yet to have targets set. It represents the areas which Hampshire County Council aims to improve, where it is still being decided how this will be achieved. The Hot List is still under development.

Items in the Corporate Improvement Plan are all included in Departmental Service Plans. These service plans feed into staff’s Individual Performance Plans, thus ensuring that all employees have collective responsibility in delivering the Corporate Improvement Plan.

The process behind the Corporate Improvement Plan

The Corporate Improvement Plan provides Cabinet and the Corporate Management Team (CMT) with a framework for managing the performance of the authority against the priorities which have been set.

• Broadly, performance management happens on an exception basis, so that energies are focused on addressing areas for improvement. This includes celebrating significant achievements as well as identifying areas for further improvement.

• Results against targets and activities are reported regularly to departmental management teams (DMTs) and their relevant Executive Members.

• DMTs identify areas of concern and propose actions to address any potential problems.

• The Corporate Management Team receive quarterly and Cabinet half yearly summaries of performance results, which highlight areas of concern and proposals to address them.  The Corporate Performance and Efficiency Group coordinate actions to address areas of concern.

• At least once a year, information comparing Hampshire results with those of other top performing authorities is compiled, providing useful information on our progress.

The Corporate Improvement Plan is reviewed and updated annually.

Hampshire safer and more secure for all

This priority is about developing and supporting stronger, safer communities by protecting vulnerable people; maximising safety; helping young people to live positive lives; and helping diverse communities to feel secure.

In 2010/11

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  250,000 unsafe products were withdrawn from the marketplace by our Trading Standards team.

   

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  We set up the 300^th ‘no cold calling zone’ - 72% of residents in these zones say they feel safer as a result.

   

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  1,900 new community salt bins were installed, helping people to cope with the poor winter weather.

   

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  We implemented the Village 30 scheme, introducing 30mph speed limits in 112 villages – average speed reduced by 10% as a result.

   

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  Our Trading Standards officers recouped £250,000 for some of our most vulnerable residents, who had been targeted by rogue traders.

   

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  Our Community Safety Officers worked with Hampshire Police to reduce anti-social behaviour in the summer – resulting in 17% fewer incidents of rowdy and inconsiderate behaviour and 15% fewer incidents of vehicle related nuisance.

   

How did we perform against targets?

• We achieved 86% of our targets for this priority.
• 100% of measures showed improvement from 2009/10.

You can find out more about our performance against targets in the Cabinet report Open for Business – A Review of Key Strategies and Progress; Building on Success and Improvement.

Maximising Wellbeing

This priority is about improving quality of life in Hampshire, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to support themselves, be active in their community and have access to the services they need.

In 2010/11

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  Over 3,000 adults used personal budgets, choosing the support services they wanted through self-directed support.

   

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  A record 61.5% of school pupils achieved five or more GCSEs at grade A*-C, including English and maths in summer 2010 exams.

   

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  100% of Children’s Centres inspected by Ofsted were found to be good or outstanding.

   

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  Our Children’s Services Department was judged as performing excellently by Ofsted inspectors, who said that the County Council has “an unrelenting focus on improving outcomes for children and young people and the quality of services provided for them”.

   

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  We opened the refurbished Waterlooville Library and Learning Centre and Basingstoke Discovery Centre. Both centres provide enhanced facilities, wifi access, self service and Hantsdirect local.

   

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  Our museums were visited over half a million times.

   

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  Over 114,000 new concessionary travel passes were issued.

   

How did we perform against targets?

• We achieved 38% of our targets for this priority.
• 58% of measures showed improvement from 2009/10.

You can find out more about our performance against targets in the Cabinet report Open for Business – A Review of Key Strategies and Progress; Building on Success and Improvement.

Enhancing our quality of place

This priority recognises that the quality of our natural and built environment is very important to Hampshire residents.

In 2010/11

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  62 miles of road were resurfaced and 30,000 potholes filled in over 200 locations in just six months in the Operation Restore scheme.  It recently won the Major Project Award in the ICE South East England Engineering Awards.

   

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  Work to replace and maintain 250,000 streetlights across Hampshire began, under a 25 year private finance initiative.

   

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  One of the village shops supported by our Village Community Grant scheme won Hampshire County Magazine's Village Shop of the Year Award 2011.  Centre Stores in Eversley was voted the winner, in part due to the way in which the new owners have embraced the selling of local produce in the shop.  

   

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  We launched a new online service for reporting road problems.

   

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  Our countryside sites were visited 412,000 times – a 30% increase from the previous year.

   

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  We used 14,000 tonnes of salt keeping priority roads open during the worst of the winter weather.

   

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  Less than 10% of household waste was sent to landfill, making us the best performing County Council in England for the fifth year running.  

   

How did we perform against targets?

• We achieved 60% of our targets for this priority.
• 40% of measures showed improvement from 2009/10.

You can find out more about our performance against targets in the Cabinet report Open for Business – A Review of Key Strategies and Progress; Building on Success and Improvement.

Our Finances

Hampshire County Council provides vital services for 1.3 million people. An overall annual budget of £1.8 billion was set in 2010/11.

We continue to be one of the lowest funded County Councils in terms of funding from central Government per head of population.  Our general Government grant increase in 2010/11 was 1.5%, well below the 4% average increase for County Councils.

The June 2010 Emergency Budget led to some reductions in the funding we had already been allocated for 2010/11, particularly in Children’s Services.  We recognised that there would be further reductions in funding from central Government, so we started planning for this immediately.  The first phase of our efficiencies and expenditure reduction programme was approved in July 2010.  

Despite budget pressures, the County Council remains committed to providing good quality services for those who need them most, while keeping council tax low for Hampshire residents.

Our spending

Summary of actual spend compared with the original 2010/11 budget

Children’s Services were allocated an additional £3.8 million to help them deal with government grant cuts and financial pressures resulting from the numbers of children in care and the cost of home to school transport.  All other departments achieved under spends against their budget.  Overall, service cash limited expenditure was £9.8 million lower than budgeted.

Further savings of £3.6 million were achieved in other areas, including reducing the cost of the waste management contract.

Where our money came from

Non-ring fenced government grants mainly comprise:

• Revenue support grant: general funding from the Government for core council services. It is based on the Government’s assessment of the Council’s spending need, its receipt from national business rates and its ability to generate income from council tax.
• Area based grant: a general grant allocated by the government directly to local authorities as additional revenue funding. Local authorities are free to use the grant to support the delivery of local, regional and national priorities.

National business rates are charges collected by district councils from non-domestic properties, at a national rate in the pound set by Government.The proceeds are pooled nationally and redistributed to areas based on the Government’s assessment of spending need and local resources.

As we get a low amount of Government grant per head of population, most services in Hampshire are funded by your council tax.

Our final accounts

The final accounts set out the cost of running Hampshire County Council’s services in 2010/11. These are published in the format required by international accounting standards and the code of practice for preparing local authority final accounts. Full details are available in the 2010/11 Statement of Accounts.

The General Fund

The General Fund balance is the surplus of revenue income over expenditure. It compares the Council's spending against the council tax it raised for the year, taking into account the use of reserves built up in the past and contributions to reserves earmarked for future expenditure.

The surplus on the provision of services shown on the Comprehensive Statement of Income and Expenditure includes items which the Government stipulates should not be chargeable to the General Fund. These are mainly associated with asset depreciation and retirement benefit accrual which do not necessarily lead to short or medium term cash flows. Therefore, these are transferred to the Balance Sheet and replaced with the employer’s pension contribution and the annual repayment of loans for capital expenditure.

Further details about the General Fund can be found in the Movement in Reserves Statement and notes 7 to 9 of the 2010/11 Statement of Accounts.

* As noted on the our spending webpage, the surplus on the provision of services mainly arises from a reduction in the valuation of pension fund liabilities related to past service. This results from the Government’s decision taken in June 2010 to base statutory pension increases in future on the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Price Index (RPI). This is not chargeable to the General Fund.

The Balance Sheet

The Balance Sheet presents the financial position of the County Council at 31 March 2011. It shows what the Council owned, owes and was owed on that date.

* Cash-backed reserves are available, as needed, to finance revenue and capital spending.

# Non-cash backed reserves would only become usable if the County Council was to dispose of all its fixed assets at their balance sheet value.

Hampshire Partners Performance Group

A Hampshire Partners Performance Group, consisting of performance leads from Hampshire County Council departments, district councils, and other key public and voluntary sector partners in Hampshire, has been established.

For further information about this group please contact Sue Sylvester: sue.sylvester@hants.gov.uk

National Indicator Set (NIS)

In October 2006, the Local Government White Paper on Strong and Prosperous Communities was published, committing to introducing a set of streamlined indicators that would reflect national priority outcomes for local authorities working alone or in partnership.

A single set of 188 national indicators was introduced from April 2008 with the purpose of:

• Being the only measures on which central Government will performance monitor outcomes delivered by local government working alone or in partnership.
• Replacing all other existing sets of indicators including Best Value Performance Indicators and Performance Assessment Framework indicators.
• Forming a set of measures from which partnerships could select 'designated' indicators for Local Area Agreements.

However, with the election of the new coalition government and with effect from October 2010, following the announcement on the ending of Local Area Agreements and the National Indicator Set, both the Hub and the Places Analysis Tool (PAT) will be closed within the next few months. Data on these central government webpages is no longer being updated or maintained whilst further decisions are considered about the future performance reporting requirements of local government.

Data returns to individual government departments that make up the NIs will continue unless you are informed otherwise. Each government department responsible for NIs will continue to publish data taken from these data returns in the same way they always have done. You will therefore still be able to access the data directly from them.

• Our 2008/09 performance for all the National Indicators.
• Definitions of the national indicators are available on the Communities and Local Government website.
• Further information is available on the Audit Commission website

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