How we reached our priorities

The Corporate Strategy priorities are based on a detailed understanding of the needs of the county's communities and supported by effective partnerships. Through our market research programme, we have listened to what residents of Hampshire have to say and what their priorities for improvement are. These have been considered alongside a wide range of other information which has also helped shape our priorities, including the demography of Hampshire and factors such as the financial resources and constraints of the Council.

Strong links have been made with partners with mutually supportive priorities across a number of key partnerships including the Local Area Agreement, Hampshire Strategic Partnership (Community Strategy) and the Children and Young People Plan among many others.

Priorities Timeline

In 2004 the Hampshire community strategy was published and work began on the partnership Local Public Service agreement Two (LPSA2); follow this link to view them both. We also revised the Corporate Strategy to make a clearer link to the issues highlighted in the community strategy, LPSA stretched targets, Cabinet priorities and the Hampshire Improvement programme. A further MORI residents survey was also carried out.

In 2005 following the election, work was carried out with the new Cabinet to understand the priorities for the new administration and we began to discuss the priorities and process for the Local Area Agreement.

During 2006 the Local Area Agreement and LPSA2 were signed as separate agreements and then brought together in a single performance process. In parallel the new corporate priorities were developed and published. These provide us with a clear vision for the four years of the administration and priorities to help develop service planning through high level outcomes measures and longer term targets. It gives a clear message to Hampshire residents of what they can expect from the County Council.

In 2007 the Corporate Business Plan was published, which can be viewed on these pages.

In 2008 the new LAA has been agreed as well as the move to the new 198 National Indicators against which we will set targets and monitor our performance.

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 the arts thrive. 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. While 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 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, including the private sector, the voluntary and community sector, health, the police and fire services, district, parish and town councils as well as other local authorities. The following outlines some of our key strategic partnerships:

Local Area Agreement

This LAA is a 3 year agreement between partners in Hampshire and the Government to improve lives and conditions in Hampshire communities. The Agreement focuses the attention of partners on 8 priority outcomes drawn from the Hampshire Community Strategy and the 11 District Community Strategies. The original agreement,was signed in February 2006, and submitted along with the original action plan. The LAA will be replaced by a new LAA from June 2008, based on indicators drawn from the new National Indicator Set.

Hampshire's New LAA will include targets aimed at delivering the longer term Hampshire Sustainable Community Strategy. This document is in draft and subject to approval of the County Council. The draft strategy is based on:

• What is important to quality of life of people in Hampshire

• A picture of quality of life in Hampshire today

• Key challenges to quality of life for the future; and

• Ambitions for a sustainable Hampshire

View our Local Area Agreement on these pages.

Partners in Hampshire have agreed to 'stretch performance' in specific areas under the 'Local Public Service Agreement 2'. This separate agreement with government brings with it additional funding and potential to earn performance reward grants.

Hampshire Strategic Partnership

The Hampshire Strategic Partnership is a multi-sector/ multi-organisation partnership, which has been established as the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) for the County of Hampshire. Consisting of over 30 members, its role is to oversee the development and implementation of the Hampshire wide Community Strategy.

Financial Context

The overall improvements in performance during 2007/08 identified in the report need to be set in the context of the County Council's overall financial position. The County Council continued to be a floor authority and as such received the lowest increase in government grant of 2.7% paid to upper tier authorities and therefore is more constrained financially than most comparator authorities. Services were required to achieve savings of £18.9m from increased efficiency and from reviewing priorities and these targets have been met.

2007/08 represented the second year of Adult Services financial recovery plan based on the modernisation of services in response to outturns above budget of £11.1m and £7.5m in 2005/06 and 2006/07 respectively. The plan has been successfully implemented. As a result of minimum winter pressures between November 2007 and March 2008, a planned carry forward of £3.5m to 2008/09 has also been achieved. In conjunction with improvements in five of the national indicators for adult social care, this demonstrates increased effectiveness in the use made of resources. Spending has continued to increase by 5.1% on the waste management contract in 2007/08, but this has been accompanied by a further increase in recycling levels and landfill diversion of household waste. The importance of recruiting and retaining more in-house foster carers in order to improve the stability of placements for looked after children has been recognized in the allocation of invest to save funding of £1.4m in 2008/09 to increase the allowances paid to in-house foster carers.

Summary Statement of Accounts 2007/08

The cost of Hampshire County Council services

The Income and Expenditure Account sets out the cost of running Hampshire County Council’s services in 2007/08, and where the money came from to pay for them. Hampshire County Council achieved an underspend of £8.2 million against the revised budget during 2007/08. £5.1 million of this underspend has been allocated to reducing the planned council tax rise in 2009/10 and 2010/11 from 3.5% to 3.0%. A further £2 million has also been allocated to repairing potholes and other road and pavement improvements.

The statement of the movement on the General Fund Balance summarises the costs that are recorded in the Income and Expenditure Account but are not chargeable to the General Fund, and thus why the General Fund Balance has increased by £6,558,000 despite the deficit on the Income and Expenditure Account, and is £8.2 million higher than budgeted.

Where the Council spent its money in 2007/08

Financial position of the Council at the end of 2007/08:

The Balance Sheet presents the financial position of the Council at 31 March 2008 and the value of its assets and liabilities. It shows what the Council owns and is owed. The total net worth of the council has increased by just over £460 million during 2007/08. This is mainly due to the revaluation of land and buildings which took place during the year.

Capital expenditure:

Capital expenditure is the money the Council spent on purchasing and improving assets such as buildings, roads and equipment. The Council receives the benefit from such capital expenditure over many years.  Examples of large capital projects completed during 2007/08 include the opening of the Winchester Discovery Centre, the completion of six new or refurbished schools and major cycleway and bus route infrastructure improvements.

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 areas including energy, water, biodiversity, soil, air & mileage. These are also aggregated to give a score for natural resources. The baseline work was published in September 2006, improvement priorities have been set, and scores will be published annually from 2008/09 onwards.

Within this framework, 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 transport management fleet.

Sources of info:

HCC's Aalborg Baseline Review

IDeA recognition

Delivering our Priorities

The Corporate Business Plan

The Corporate Business Plan identifies the key projects and activities which will deliver the three priorities. It is a tool to be used by managers when developing departmental and service plans. Ultimately these three priorities should find their way 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.

Download a full copy of the Corporate Business Plan

Download a copy of the Corporate Business Plan Impact Assessment (conducted in 2007)

How it works

The Corporate Business Plan also 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 identifed areas of concern and propose actions taken to address any potential problems. Where appropriate, the Executive Member took action to address them.

• Cabinet and the Corporate Management Team receive twice yearly summaries of performance results at the end of the half year and full year, which highlight areas of concern and proposals to address them.

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

Although the vision and three priorities of the Corporate Strategy will remain in place until the elections in 2009, the business plan will be reviewed and updated annually, reporting on our performance against these priorities.

Structure of the Business Plan

The business plan element of the Corporate Strategy is a tool to ensure that actions are taken to implement our corporate priorities - something that managers get to know and refer back to. It is arranged in four sections. The first three relate to each of the corporate priorities i.e:

• Hampshire safer and more secure for all

• Maximising wellbeing

• Enhancing our quality of place

The fourth section, called the management plan, is where we identify the key outcomes which relate more to internal projects and activities than to external service delivery. These are the things which ensure that we are a well-run organisation and are well-equipped to maintain and improve performance. So, for example, this is where work on the employee Pay & Benefits project and our Risk Management Strategy are recorded.

Outcomes

Under each of the four sections we have identified a number of outcomes which tell us what it is that we are aiming to achieve and how we will know that we have done so.

For example, the first outcome under 'Hampshire safer and more secure for all' is:

• There is a reassuring, visible uniformed presence

We have also identified the Cabinet Member and Chief Officer (manager) who has overall responsibility for ensuring the delivery of each outcome. Very often this means working across departments and with external partners to achieve a common goal.

Activities

At a greater level of detail again we have identified what key activities or projects will support the delivery of the outcomes. Here we have identified which manager is responsible for leading the project or activity and once again, in many cases, they will work closely with managers in other departments or with partners in other organisations who are also making a contribution to the desired outcome.

Performance Indicators

To give us more detail, and to help with performance management, we have identified specific performance indicators that we will use to judge our progress. There are a small number of performance indicators which relate directly to the corporate priorities and which will help Cabinet and the Corporate Management Team to manage the performance of the authority as a whole.

For example, the top level performance indicators for 'Hampshire safe and secure for all' relate to:

• Fear of crime

• Actual Crime

• Low level crime indicator/ antisocial behaviour

At a more detailed level, we have also selected performance indicators to judge our progress against each of the outcomes and named the executive member and Chief Officer (manager) responsible for delivery against the target.

For example, the performance indicator for 'There is a reassuring, visible uniformed presence' is:

• Percentage of people stating that Accredited Community Safety Officers (ACSOs) and Police Community Safety Officers (PCSOs) have made a difference in making the area a safer place to live.

Wherever possible, we have aligned targets and performance indicators with those that relate to our key partnerships, such as the Local Area Agreement and the Children's and Young People's Partnership.

We have shown a benchmark of current performance and a target for the progress we want to make. In most cases we are looking for performance improvement in each year. Where we have set longer term targets we have also identified milestones so that we can monitor whether we are on track. Targets are reviewed annually and results reported at least twice a year.

Our Performance

They explain how our performance is judged by:

• The people of Hampshire

• Ourselves, through Self Assessment and internal reviews of our services

• Government's Inspectors

They also contain our annual review of performance, reporting our progress in 2007-8 under the following headings:

• Progress against our priorities

• How well we perform compared to other county councils

• Departmental Performance

• Our local Performance Indicator results

• Our national Best Value Performance Indicator results

What do the Government's Inspectors say?

Overall the Council is performing strongly, well above minimum requirements. With its partners across the county it has developed clear and challenging ambitions that reflect the needs and diversity of its communities. These cover four key, cross-cutting themes - safe and strong communities; health and wellbeing; economic prosperity and lifelong learning; and environment, infrastructure and transport. They are underpinned by a commitment to long-term sustainability and social inclusion. The Council is forward looking, with a strong understanding of the key challenges facing Hampshire. These include responding to the demands for growth, and the impact of climatic and demographic changes.

Corporate Assessment 2007

The Corporate Assessment looked at every aspect of how the County Council is managed and how it serves the population of Hampshire. Although this was predominantly an assessment of Hampshire County Council there was a strong emphasis on the quality of partnerships and how we work with partners.

Hampshire County Council scored four out of four in the latest test of its performance by Government watchdog the Audit Commission.

This is the sixth consecutive year that Hampshire has achieved the highest rating and been in the top performing quartile of county councils and unitary authorities.

We were judged on five key themes: Ambition for the community; prioritisation; capacity; performance management and achievement. Throughout all five themes, the inspectors were particularly looking for evidence of: Community leadership; working in partnership; political and managerial leadership; user focus and diversity and value for money.

As part of the test the County Council was also judged as improving well and this is borne out by higher judgments being achieved for environment and cultural services compared to last year. In making its judgment the Audit Commission stated that: “Overall the Council is performing strongly, well above minimum requirements. With its partners across the county it has developed clear and challenging ambitions that reflect the needs and diversity of its communities. These cover four key, cross-cutting themes - safe and strong communities; health and wellbeing; economic prosperity and lifelong learning; and environment, infrastructure and transport. They are underpinned by a commitment to long-term sustainability and social inclusion. The Council is forward looking, with a strong understanding of the key challenges facing Hampshire. These include responding to the demands for growth, and the impact of climatic and demographic changes.’’

Joint Area Review of Children's Services

The Joint Area Review has judged services for children and young people in Hampshire to be consistently ‘good’ with some ‘outstanding’ features. This gives an overall score of three (out of four) which feeds into the Council’s overall Corporate Assessment.

The Joint Area Review (JAR) was a major inspection of the services provided for vulnerable children and young people across Hampshire, not just those provided by the County Council, but including all Partner organisations. It focussed on how we work together across health, the district councils, the voluntary sector and other organisations to look after and provide services for children and young people in Hampshire.

John Coughlan, Director of Children’s Services says: “This is great news and a fair result for Hampshire. I am acutely aware of some of the serious challenges some areas of service face and I am fiercely determined that we should address those challenges and further improve the outcomes for our most vulnerable children. But I know what we provide and achieve now is already good, largely because of our exceptional workforce. I just want it to be better and this result gives us the right platform to improve with confidence”.

The County Council and partners will celebrate this achievement, but more importantly now need to put our energy and commitment into a robust improvement plan to address the recommendations from the JAR and to build on this achievement.

Annual Audit and Inspection Letter

In addition to inspecting our services, the Audit Commission appoint a local auditor to audit our accounts and ensure we have appropriate arrangements in place to manage the authority effectively. Each year the local auditor writes a formal letter to County Councillors, which makes recommendations for improvement. The 2007 Annual Audit and Inspection Letter states: Hampshire County Council is improving well. The Council continues to improve well in its priority areas.'.

View the 2007 Annual Audit and Inspection letter here

Audit of Performance Plan and Performance Indicators

As part of these arrangements the local auditor must also make sure this Performance Plan complies with legislation and that the performance data is accurate.

Recent inspections

Recently we have been subject to several intensive inspections of our services.

Adult Services:

Supporting People Programme rated as 'excellent'

In 2007 we became the first county council in England to be given the highest possible score by the Audit Commission for our Supporting People programme. The commission rated it as an excellent programme with Excellent prospects for improvement. This was based on strong partnerships with colleagues in district councils, probation and health; positive relations with providers; our long-established committment to involving service users; the strong and ambitious leadership of the programme; the high level of support and ownership of the programme among both elected Members and senior managers; and the positive track record in delivering improvements despite a reducing budget.

Children’s Services:

The Annual Performance Assessment (APA) 2007 has confirmed that Children’s Services are making a good contribution to improving the lives of children and young people in Hampshire judged against the five Every Child Matters outcomes.

The Joint Area Review (JAR) and the enhanced inspection of the youth service also found that in all of the areas of investigation the County Council and our partners are making a good contribution to improving the lives of vulnerable groups of children and young people across the county. In some aspects, services were judged to be outstanding. In particular, the JAR concluded that we have highly competent staff across all of the services, that we have strong management and leadership throughout, that our partnerships are working very well, and that there is a good relationship between schools and the local authority in the delivery of Every Child Matters.

The Joint Area Review 2007 judged that we make a good contribution to ensuring that children and young people achieve economic wellbeing with very good provision for young people aged 14-19 achieving high success and participation rates in most areas.

Adult Services:

Adult Services performance against the CSCI Performance Assessment Framework (PAF) indicators continued to improve in 2007/08 for the second year in a row with 90% of the indicators improving on the previous year’s performance and 76% exceeding plan.

In November 2007 Adult Services were awarded 3 stars by CSCI following our annual performance assessment; this included an ‘Excellent’ rating for leadership and use of resources

Recreation & Heritage

The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) 2007 Culture block performance score was announced in February 2008.  A high level of library user satisfaction from the annual PLUS, a low cost per visit for libraries (£2.50) and increase in school sports participation to 88% ensured that Hampshire achieved 6 upper thresholds and no indicators below the lower threshold to achieve the top score of 4 for the Culture block.