The impact of Covid-19 on performance management in UK local government

The impact of austerity on neighbourhood services has been huge, APSE estimated that we need a further £3.2B per annum just to take us back to minimum sustainable level which we passed in 2015/16. The Covid-19 pandemic arrived at a time when resources are already significantly reduced for local government.

APSE introduced a new quarterly data collection exercise to assess the impact of Covid-19 on a range of front-line services. To facilitate this process, APSE established service specific working groups to identify questions under the headings of cost, income, productivity and quality which could be assessed for the quarter.

This report relates to the first quarter of 2020 (April – June) and shows the averages for individual services from participating authorities. We received 115 returns for this project from local authorities throughout the UK.

This analysis has focuses on the following key areas across the service areas:

• Expenditure
• Income
• Impact on employees
• Service standards
• Service requests
• Service usage
• Works data
• Streetscene
• Cemeteries and crematoria
• Refuse collection
• Fuel consumption

Whilst this report provides data for the first quarter only, further data collection exercises will be conducted for subsequent quarters, subject to demand. This data and analysis will support our member councils to assess their performance comparative with others, within their specific service sector.

This report can be viewed in conjunction with other reports that have been produced by APSE, such as resilience surveys and remobilisation reports.

Download the Report (pdf)