Colin Shand from the National Performance Management Framework talks to eGov monitor on the framework programme and how it can assist local authorities in providing more effective and efficient services.
What is the NPMF?
The National Performance Management Framework (NPMF) has been introduced to not only achieve significant improvements in the administration of housing and council tax benefit but also to reduce the workload required by local authorities in reporting back to central government.
Why did East Lothian decide to become the lead authority on the project?
Firstly, East Lothian was seriously under-performing and had been ordered by the DWP to initiate service improvements. Secondly, like many other Councils, East Lothian were struggling under the sheer load of diverse reporting requirements, which were not fed from a single or consistent source. They were reporting separate but similar performance information to the DWP as part of their normal business, on the issues that fell under the direction and on the work with the DWP Help Team. They were also required to report to the BFI in respect of the new Performance Standards that had been introduced.
What success has East Lothian achieved through the NPMF?
“The National Performance Management Framework has dramatically improved the level and visibility of performance information we now have available throughout the service. The hosted benchmarking facility has allowed us to compare performance and share best practice with all other participating authorities in real time.”
The benefits include –
- Improved performance management information in a consistent format
- Improved visibility of case-load to enable optimisation of resource allocation
- Early warning indictors
- Reduced administrative overhead in producing statutory reports for DWP
- Improved quality of returns ensures correct levels of subsidies are paid to local authorities by DWP
- Benchmarking and sharing of best practice
- Enabling real performance improvement to be initiated and monitored
How does the project work? What is needed in terms of time/resources to get started?
The NPMF has been designed and piloted to minimise input from the local authority. Based on the project in East Lothian we have found that time will be required from both a project representative and IT representative to get the framework up and running.
The project representative will be required to spend 3 to 4 days in total, which will primarily be spent on attending a one day ‘train the trainer’ session and then hosting some end user training sessions to all other users within the local authority. They will also be responsible for collating historical data for the initial population of the scorecard and will be the primary point of contact.
The IT representative will be required to spend 2 to 3 days assisting in the setting up of a secure file transfer connection and in configuring the local authority PCs so the NPMF hosted service can be accessed.
Implementations are scheduled to start in April 2006, end in April 2007 and those local authorities who sign up first will be prioritised. Each will receive 15 user licenses to deploy within their organisation, and all set-up costs and licence fees for the first year will generally be covered by the DWP.
Following implementation, on-going operational efficiencies and performance can be identified from a single source providing significant reductions in the time and resources required to collect data and compile reports from standalone systems.
The NPMF uses key performance indicators that measure areas such as the responsiveness or accuracy of the service using a traffic light system to show where the critical areas requiring attention are and consequently where resources need to be directed. The statutory reports for the DWP are automated and validated against all of the DWP validation rules, further reducing the workload for the local authority.
As part of the framework, a full performance standards assessment module is available which captures and saves all historical information. The DWP can electronically access the performance standards assessments, which enables the local authority to review improvement trends.
Currently the NPMF only addresses the performance of how housing and council tax benefits are being processed but it has the potential to be extended to other departments.
How can your local authority sign up?
For more information please contact Colin on cshand@eastlothian.gov.uk