A Data Remember! Performance Networks Seminar Report Back

One of the biggest events in the local government calendar, we provide a summary of the speakers, workshops and forums from APSE’s annual benchmarking seminar in Blackpool.

At this current time, it has never been more crucial to collect data so as to fully understand the impact and consequences of the cost of living crisis, and how this has impacted on resources and performance across council services. Benchmarking is essential to achieving this; informing budgets, target setting and highlighting areas of improvement over time. 

With this in mind, the APSE Performance Networks Seminar remains a unique date in the local government calendar as it provides an unrivalled opportunity for service managers and directors to network and exchange ideas on data intelligence. 

On the first day of the seminar, delegates heard from various high-profile keynote speakers discussing the ways council services can leverage their data to demonstrate competitiveness and improve performance.  In the afternoon, delegates could attend one of five informative and engaging forums and then one of eight service-specific workshops. The forums and workshops allowed delegates to discuss issues of local concern and develop solutions with colleagues through problem solving surgeries.

International perspectives

The opening session of this year’s event - a panel session - had an international flavour as we were delighted to be joined from Sweden by Johanna Ragnartz, CEO of Keep Sweden Tidy (KST). 

Johanna began her presentation by providing an overview of Sweden’s demographics, economy and geography. Johanna then moved on to highlight KST’s mission: promoting recycling and combatting litter through public awareness campaigns, awards and environmental education. Johanna spoke of how working strategically, engaging civil society, good communication with local media and, most relevant to those in attendance, using data effectively, is key to realising KST’s ambitions. 

Staying on the theme of data intelligence, Johanna stressed the importance of performance data in shaping and sustaining effective litter monitoring. As well as being a platform for cross-departmental problem solving and programme evaluation, Johanna spoke of how data plays a key role in driving a culture of innovation. ”

Public trust in councils on the rise

Our next speaker of the session, Damian Lyons Lowe, of Survation, shared the latest results of the APSE/Survation 2022 public opinion survey. The survey has found that trust in local councils was slightly higher than last year, and significantly higher than trust in national government and private companies. In addition to being the most trusted to make decisions about how services are delivered in their local area, councils were also the most trusted to make decisions about local planning. The poll also surveyed the public on the pertinent issue of climate change. You can learn more about these findings on page 6.

A snapshot of APSE’s benchmarking service

APSE’s Debbie Johns presented a picture of how far local government services have recovered from the pandemic by drawing on the data sets in Performance Networks. First, Debbie set some context; the latest data was drawn from the 2021-22 financial year and this was compared to 2020-21, which was the financial year heavily affected by Covid-19. Covid still had some impact in 2021-22, particularly in April 2021, but we did see the start of recovery from the pandemic.  The baseline year (2019-20) was also used to illustrate performance pre- and post- Covid.   By comparing the averages for councils who have been in the data set consistently, the analysis demonstrated the impact that the pandemic had and how far local government has recovered.  

Overall, council services have had different experiences in terms of additional spend over and above usual spend on PPE and covid-related costs such as materials, equipment, signage, etc.  The data showed that even though we have had some reduction in this for most service areas this year, there is still a significant amount of spend on covid-related costs.  For instance, for building cleaning, this represented 7.42% of spend in 20-21 and this has reduced to 6.86% in 21-22.  The data also showed the impact of Covid on income and recovery from this.  The reduction in income for Building maintenance during 20-21 (15%) was a short-term reduction, as compared to 19-20, income in 21-22 has increased by 14%.  For refuse collection, the 8% reduction in income again was short term as there has been a 9% increase in income in 21-22 compared to the base year 19-20 (pre-Covid).  The services which have only partly recovered to pre-Covid levels in terms of income are catering and leisure, which are still showing a reduction in income compared to pre-Covid.  This will be because some schools were still closed during this year, as were some leisure centres.

Debbie then analysed the impact on staff.  Refuse collection, building maintenance and building cleaning have all shown an increase in staff in 21-22 compared to the base year 19-20.  This is due to increased workloads and catching up on work (such as housing repairs) now buildings are reopen.  However, catering and cemetery and crematorium services have experienced a reduction in staff this year compared to pre-Covid which is more likely to be a result of recruitment and retention issues being experienced in these sectors.

Next, Debbie discussed the impact on service provision.  Overall, only 9% councils suspended any refuse collection services in 21-22 compared to 69% last year.  However, these were pre-dominantly very short suspensions.  As a result of Covid, 13% of councils have made long term changes to their refuse collection timetables, including collection frequencies and shift patterns. The data showed a large increase in service request changes for street cleansing compared to the base year 19-20, so Covid has increased demand in the long-term, with additional demands being faced by the service in emptying litter bins (38% increase) and dog bins (60% increase). This has been affected by an increase in the number of bins to cope with demand and also an increase in dog ownership.  Fly-tipping increased by 51% last year as a result of the pandemic and has since reduced by 13%.

For roads, highways and street lighting services, 20-21 meant restrictions in work that could be carried out and 21-22 figures demonstrate recovery.  Recovery has not only seen councils get back to pre-pandemic levels but exceed those levels in a lot of cases.  Improvements include an increase in the percentage of emergency defects made safe within response times from 90% in 19-20 to 92% in 21-22 (for carriageways) and from 91% to 93% for footways. In addition, the percentage of safety inspections completed on time increased from 94% to 97% for carriageways and from 87% to 92% for footways.

The LAMS (Land Audit Management System) is a quality inspection system to monitor grounds maintenance and/or street cleansing. The results had been extracted from LAMS for street cleansing and grounds maintenance for inspections undertaken during the 2020-21 financial year.  In street cleansing, there were improvements in all of the averages for litter, detritus, weeds, fly tipping and staining/gum with the other issues staying at similar levels compared to the base year 19-20 (pre-pandemic).  This improvement across environmental issues will have been aided by monitoring tools such as LAMS helping to identify and rectify environmental issues.  A similar picture emerges for ground maintenance although flower bed maintenance deteriorated, which is likely to be a result of a reduction in maintenance funding.  

Debbie then drew on some of the climate change measures reported by APSE Performance Networks. 84% of councils had made a formal Climate Emergency declaration with a further 6% having a commitment to actions.  68% have set targets on carbon reduction whilst only 19% have set targets on ecological emergency.  Last year saw a proliferation of measures in performance networks on environmental sustainability for each service area.  This included that 80% of parks services have reduced the amount of glyphosate used from 5 years ago and 75% of catering services recycle food waste.  The data is showing that progress has been made, although in some of the areas there is still a lot of scope for improvement such as the use of alternative fuels and electric vehicles and renewable energy sources. 

Finally, customer satisfaction levels show that support for refuse collection services has continued and this has increased to an average of 92%. Satisfaction with building cleaning has increased in the past 2 years despite additional demands being placed on the service as a result of the pandemic.  However, customer satisfaction for street cleansing, even though it increased during Covid, has retracted since and this could be due to an increase in demand for the service with reduced budgets and an increase in expectations. 

Following on from this, Debbie updated delegates as to the progress being made by the Performance Networks service in launching new projects, expanding its influence and improving user experience.   This included the LAMS app which now has 46 councils as users, measuring the quality of service delivery for grounds, streets and cemetery land. In addition, APSE will be developing new dynamic interactive reports and dashboards through the use of new reporting tools on the web portal to complement the current report set.   

Debbie closed her address by noting that Performance Networks is a vital tool for councils to be able to compare their inputs, productivity, outputs and outcomes with similar councils who are facing the same challenges.  APSE Performance Networks is the best source of information for local government, which is needed now more than ever to battle for budgets and to provide evidence to internal and external stakeholders.

Forums and workshops

In the afternoon, delegates attended thematic forums that honed in on particularly pressing issues for range of local government frontline services.

Talking Workforce

The forum on workforce matters explored the issues of recruitment and retention of staff, the elephant in the room in  terms of pay and conditions and competition with both the private sector and other areas of the public sector for staff. Mo Baines, APSE, reported on the outcomes of APSE’s latest research on recruitment and retention issues, alongside the economy wide perspective on workforce and labour shortages. Terry Pycroft of Leeds City Council outlined Leeds approach to creating a modern and agile working environment. Importantly Terry stressed the need to ensure all workforce changes are inclusive and support diversity, particularly when looking at post-Covid working conditions and the return to the office environment. 

Inspection Apps for public spaces

This forum discussed the Apps which have been developed for public spaces including LAMS (Land Audit Management System) for green spaces, streets and cemetery land.  The two new Apps being piloted were also highlighted including PIMS (Playground Inspection Monitoring System) and MIST (Memorial Inspection Safety Tool).  Stuart Russo, Senior Technical Officer for City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, demonstrated how the reporting of the inspection results could be enhanced through the use of Power BI, including drawing in other comparators such as deprivation, the use of mapping features, dynamic reporting and using drill down features.  This will all be discussed further at the next LAMS working group meeting in the new year.

Are “green” indicators the most important? 

This forum examined what we mean by “green indicators” and ways in which they can be used to address the challenges of climate change. Lucy Northey, Climate Emergency Manager at Wirral Council shared a case study which highlighted the use of Power BI as a tool to track progress over a number of ecological and climate-related indicators, from street lighting, eco-schools to woodland planting. The forum addressed the importance of monitoring performance in an environment of stretched resources and pressures. Key issues such as recruitment of staff/consultants with the skills and depth of understanding to undertake baseline benchmarking were discussed, alongside the challenges of determining the source of emissions within each service sector.

APSE Council of the year 2022 - Eastleigh Borough Council

The Executive Head of Neighbourhood Services at Eastleigh Borough Council, Paul Naylor, gave delegates an insight as to the councils approach to complex policy and operational matters and how they work hard to maintain a ‘one family’ culture within their organisation. Rather than look at the councils success through statistics he used examples based on how Eastleigh had responded to the Afghan evacuees emergency in terms of creating healthy and sustainable communities, the councils approach to the climate emergency – including the creation of a tree nursery where apprentices were recruited and trained as part of Eastleigh’s approach to workforce recruitment and development. Paul O’Brien, APSE, then facilitated a discussion with delegates on how some of these approaches to integrating policy matters with operational activities could be scaled up across different authorities.

After lunch, day one of the seminar ended with eight highly informative workshops. With various frontline service experts facilitating the discussions, each workshop looked in depth at ways frontline staff can identify and overcome challenges, and thereby improve their effectiveness. 

Cost of living crisis

The second day of the seminar opened with Paul Bellotti, Executive Director of Communities and Environment, East Riding of Yorkshire Council. Having won APSE Overall Council of the Year in 2020, Paul spoke of how his authority are building on this success, with a special focus on the measures the authority is putting in place to protect vulnerable communities across the UK amidst the cost of living crisis. 

The seminar concluded with a panel discussion, made up of a number of senior frontline service managers from across the UK, discussing how frontline services can respond effectively to the cost of living crisis.  The panel included: Anita Brown, Service Manager - Catering & Building Cleaning, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council; John-Paul Lovie, Head of Waste Policy and Partnerships, Blackpool Council; Paul Wright, Operational Director, Halton Borough Council; Fiona Horgan, Senior Design Engineer Manager, Doncaster Council; and Paul O’Brien, APSE Chief Executive. •

If you would like to view any of the speakers’ presentations, please email Megan Butterworth on [email protected]