case study Rocket®

Dacorum Council

Finding and Capturing the Golden Thread

Dacorum is an area of 212 square kilometers situated in West that includes the towns of , , , the villages of , , and , and 12 smaller settlements. 50% of the area is Green Belt and around 18% of the borough’s 60,000 homes are owned by the council. The Council is improving in key priority areas, and the overall rate of improvement is above average compared with other District Councils.

Situation The challenge for the borough’s business improvement team was to be able to show the Dacorum community and council members that that their priorities were being met, and to demonstrate to auditors that the organization was managing its business and performance e ectively. One of the biggest diculties was to show the linkages between the top-level priorities and the everyday activities of the council. This is commonly alluded to by the Audit Commission as “The Golden Thread.”

In order to improve and move to a Portfolio Management approach, where all projects and programs clearly contribute to the Council’s strategic priorities, had to be able to demonstrate the golden thread process, which included:

• setting clear priorities – what we all have to achieve • citizen needs – what our communities need and expect from us • sound nancial control – spending resources wisely and forecasting for the future • improving service delivery – better value for money for citizens • sta engagement and development – ensuring sta have the right skills and opportunities • tracking our progress – celebrating success and reacting quickly where necessary

Solution One of the key outcomes to be delivered from this appointment was to improve performance planning and management. Part of the solution the council decided upon was to invest in specialist software that would give decision makers a framework around which to bring these activities together into a more strategic and dened approach. After evaluating several solutions, the council purchased a Rocket Software package called CorCouncil.

“CorCouncil is an ‘out-of-the-box’ system that can be installed and deployed very quickly. It came with all the tools the council needed to get its performance information system up and running, and within case study Rocket®

three months the council was running reports and within six months was using it as our main performance-reporting tool.

The system brings together: “The CorVu system allows us to hold all • Service plan objectives: current year improvements aligned to priorities of our information in • Improvement projects: longer term improvements aligned to priorities one place, including • Risk registers: recording and managing what might knock us o track data quality assurance • Performance measures: evidence that we are achieving our priorities documents. All reports will work on the COUNT According to Louise Miller, Director of Improvement, “We have not looked back and as we progress the principle (Count Once rate of improvement is impressive. What was important to us with the system we chose was that we Use Numerous Times), wouldn’t just use it to track our performance indicators, but as the building block for our whole which will dramatically performance information system. Implementing the system is part of Dacorum’s overall approach to reduce wasted time and improvement, and is part of the Improving Dacorum Program (IDP) which has successfully delivered allow us to deliver the best possible service almost £3m savings in 2009/10. Making the Rocket CorVu project part of the IDP was crucial in terms of to local residents as success for us. The IDP has very sound governance arrangements and as the project had to be delivered quickly and e ciently without any additional resources, the IDP framework kept the project on track.” as possible."

How Corcouncil Works for Us Louise Miller The successful rollout of CorVu performance software across the organization, aligned with further Director of Improvement Dacorum Borough Council development of the monthly performance review meeting, has led to underperformance being addressed more consistently. All senior managers, heads of service, directors, chief executive and cabinet members have access to performance data immediately by logging onto their computers; this includes monthly, quarterly and annual performance as well as a wide range of historic data. The system tracks current data, as well as comparing performance over the previous period and the same period in the previous year. Each indicator is also given a score of between 1 and 10, shown as red/amber/green on the reporting dashboard, which makes performance information much more visible and consistently interpreted. Targets are loaded on the system based on service information and then intervention values are set at + or – 10% of target, making it clear where services need to review their performance.

CorVu has provided a framework and governance arrangements to ensure that all indicators have to be signed o and commented on by senior managers and Heads of Service. Services update their own performance data and give commentary, which is then included in reports, this has meant better ownership of the data by services and more engagement by individual managers in the performance information system. The reports produced by the system provide a more clear analysis of current, period and forecast performance which enables greater scrutiny.

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Bene ts

• Full integration of planning and performance linked to Priorities and supporting Portfolio Management—a ‘Golden Thread’ from plans through to tangible outcomes for the community

• Faster access to better quality performance and planning information helps decision making

• Fully automated performance reporting

• Improved project management reporting

• A system which can integrate with the other software systems, e.g. Agresso

• Email alerts which go directly from the system to ask accountable ocers to update and comment upon their own performances

• All performance and planning information is in one place, and all reports are live

• Members have instant access to their portfolio performance

• Reports provide “scores” that show real and tangible progress and improvements

• The council spends more time on data analysis, rather than collection—creating a faster response to areas of concern

• A performance indicator database with target setting, performance tracking and quartile comparisons for both national and local indicators and an aid to data quality and performance improvement

• Improved organization-wide accountability for performance

• Long-term nancial savings for the Council based on improved productivity

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