Agenda item

Business Improvement, Human Resources and Communications Governance Domain Update Report

 

The Service Director Business Improvement, Human Resources and Communications will submit an information report giving an overview of the functions of the Business Improvement, Human Resources and Communications Business Unit together with information about the progress against the assurance programme in the areas of Performance Management and Equality and Inclusion.

 

Minutes:

The Service Director Business Improvement, Human Resources and Communications submitted an information report giving an overview of the functions of the Business Improvement, Human Resources and Communications Business Unit together with information about the progress against the assurance programme in the areas of Performance Management and Equality and Inclusion.

 

The report outlined the seven broad functions of the Unit, the areas of responsibility in relation to the Annual Governance Statement and focused on Business Improvement, Intelligence and Equality and Inclusion. 

 

Particular reference was made to the work and operation of the Business Improvement and Intelligence Team which was responsible for delivering the Corporate Plan Performance Report.  This was submitted on a quarterly basis to the Senior Management Team, Cabinet and, when required, the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.  The Team was currently preparing the next Council Plan for 2021-24 which would go live from April and at the same time and to the same timescales was preparing the Barnsley 2030 Place based Plan.

 

The Team was looking to reduce, streamline and sharpen the number of Performance Indicators so that they incorporated more relevant critical success factors.

 

With regard to Equality and Inclusion it was noted that the Business Unit was driven by the Public Sector Equality Duty and the work undertaken in this area undertaken within the last 12 months was outlined within the report. 

 

The report then went on to outline other improvement activities in which the Unit were involved, and particular reference was made to the activity entitled ‘Success Factors’ which would provide an opportunity to improve the demographic data of employees.

 

The report concluded by outlining the work that was ongoing to support the Annual Governance Statement 2019/20 Action Plan.

 

Written responses to questions asked by Members of the Committee were provided as follows:

 

·         It was reported that the Service performance was measured against the Business Unit Performance Indicators on a quarterly basis.  These were internal Performance Indicators and were not made public, however, they were challenged at Business Unit Management Meetings and subsequently at the quarterly Core performance session by peer Service Directors and the Executive Director Core Services.  Quarter 3 performance was currently being collated but quarter 2 showed that the Team were rated amber for income generation and red for customer self-servicing for information on the website.  This was due to new rules on website accessibility and documents had to be removed due to non-compliance.  Two Performance Indicators were not currently rated due to being new indicators based on internal Power BI usage and data management

·         As previously reported, the Council Plan for 2021/24 was due to be implemented from the 1st April.  The Plan would be made public and presented to Cabinet on the 24th March, 2021.  The Barnsley Plan 2030 was due to be made public in Spring 2021(the exact date being determined by the Purdah period when known) and consideration would also have to be given to the continuing impact/prevalence of Covid at that time.  This time-frame was, therefore, being kept under review

 

RESOLVED that the report be received, and performance of the Service be noted.

 

Supporting documents:

 

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