Best Value

What is best value?

All local authorities have a duty of Best Value, which means that we need to focus on continuously improving our performance, while still keeping an appropriate balance between quality and cost. Best value is based on working with local people and in partnership with other agencies, in order to deliver the best possible services for our communities.

Best value is really about keeping an eye on what we call the 4 Es – economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equal opportunities. We also need to make sure that our actions do not have a negative impact on the ability of future generations to meet their needs – this is called sustainable development.

An important part of Best Value is letting our residents know how we're performing and taking on board any comments, complaints or compliments they may have in order that we can continuously seek improvements in our services.

Do we have to do it?

We have been operating under best value principles for several years now, however as a result of the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003, we now have a statutory duty in this area. This duty also applies to a number of other public bodies including health boards and the police.

The Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 suggests that a successful council will:

work with its partners to identify a clear set of priorities that respond to the needs of the community in both the short and longer term
be organised to deliver those priorities
meet and clearly demonstrate that it is meeting the community’s needs
operate in a way that drives continuous improvement in all its activities
Who is going to check that we do it?

All Scottish councils are assessed on how well we’re meeting our requirements, by a national Audit of Best Value & Community Planning. This usually happens once every 3 years. East Renfrewshire Council has just completed this audit and was the first of 11 local authorities to be covered in 2005.

The audit team, from Audit Scotland and KPMG, looked at how well we’re providing best value services for our residents. We had to prepare a report setting out our evidence on how the Council is currently doing and this contained performance summaries on each service area. The auditors then met with councillors, officers and community planning partners to discuss these issues.

A report highlighting the team’s findings has recently been published by Audit Scotland and is available for you to read by clicking on the link on this page. The findings of the report cover the whole Council and include:

the strategic direction of the Council
whether the Council is organised to deliver better services
how services perform and
what needs to improve

The Audit recognised that East Renfrewshire is a successful council, which has been enthusiastic in pursuing continuous improvement and the report gives examples of this in practice. The Council has been found to provide strong corporate leadership and a high, responsive and generally improving standard of service to the public, with a good understanding of the needs of our local communities. In addition, the Council’s approaches to performance, staff management, joint working and scrutiny by elected members were all commended in the report.

The audit also confirmed areas where the Council could make improvements to retain its position at the ‘forefront’ of local government (including developing community involvement and sustainable development issues). These areas have been addressed through an improvement plan which has been successfully completed and externally audited.

How do we deliver best value?

One of the main ways we’ve been delivering best value up to now is through service reviews. These reviews take a critical look at how a service is running – is it contributing sufficiently to national and local goals and targets? Is it up to date and keeping pace with changes in what customers want? Is it taking full advantage of new technology? Are there other people who could provide a better service at a lower cost? Should we be providing the service at all or doing something else instead?

We take this critical look through what we call the 4 Cs: challenge, consult, compare, compete.

We challenge the reason for providing the service

We consult with our customers to find out their opinion

We compare the service we offer with other councils or alternative service providers (this is sometimes called benchmarking)

And, if necessary, following the information we find out during the review, we compete by exposing the service to bids from other potential service providers.

How has best value improved things?

To date, we have completed over 40 reviews and some of the key improvements are listed below:

In general terms, we now have a more systematic approach to comparing performance and more regular consultation with our customers on their views of services. We now have better communication with the public through the introduction of leaflets on areas such as welfare benefits and preventing homelessness.

We formed a Customer First team to provide an initial point of contact for most council services therefore making it easier for the public to make contact with the Council.

All of our services now follow the same procedure when setting their charges for services, therefore meaning that service-users get the best value for their money.

We developed an Anti-litter Strategy.

We increased our recycling rates from a zero-base to one of the highest in Scotland. All departments now have recycling targets and we have extended our kerbside collection scheme to include paper.

We extended our winter maintenance scheme to include footpaths to make pavements safer for pedestrians and we introduced single-manned vehicles to make better use of our staff.

As a result of consultation with the public, we introduced more customer-focused opening hours at local libraries.

We refurbished Bonnyton House to ensure that all of the older people who live there now have their own room, with en-suite facilities.

We now have a better, more focused approach to looking after council-owned property, including council houses.

In the last few years we have completed reviews of:

Services for people with physical / sensory impairment
Community planning partnership structures
Arrangements for community engagement
School transport service and its impact on the public transport network
Planning & Development
Cleansing, Vehicle Management & Land Services
Hotel Services
Revenues Services
Community Care
I.T.
Administrative Services
Translation, Interpretation and Communication Support Services
Sports, Recreation & Cultural Services
Property & Technical Services
Roads & Transportation

What are we going to do now?

As a Council, we are committed to providing high quality local services, which represent value for money and are to the satisfaction of those who receive them. We will continue to seek improvements by reviewing our services and will act in whatever way delivers the best results for the people of East Renfrewshire.

The Council has recently embarked on a significant “Programme for the Transformation of East Renfrewshire Council” . This is aimed at:

Putting the customer at the heart of all that we do
Simplifying the way we work
Getting costs down
Building on a ‘can do’ culture and embracing change.

The Transformation Programme is closely linked to efficient government and our delivery of challenging national targets within the context of tighter funding settlements.