Report - London Borough of Hillingdon

8 Hillingdon Performance Management │
between managers and staff which enable staff to talk directly to their line
manager's manager and 'diagonal slice' meetings across a range of management
levels and teams. The design of these meetings should help alleviate some of the
reluctance staff may feel about being candid about areas where performance is in
need of improvement. Such initiatives and good practice are shared at the H.I.P.
Performance Management Group and through the training programme
undertaken by the newly formed Project Support Office. However, awareness of
them amongst staff is mixed resulting in lost opportunities to implement notable
practice. We recommend that the Council implements a corporate approach to
capturing notable practice and sharing it more widely.
23 Performance Clinics have been introduced, initially within Housing and Social
Services. Performance clinics are convened to address identified areas of poor
performance. Initially a piece of research is undertaken to collate appropriate data
on the particular service area. A meeting is then held, chaired by the appropriate
Group Director and attended by service and team managers as well as other
appropriate personnel. The output from these clinics is an action plan which is
then monitored. Initially developed within Social Services these are now being
rolled out across the Council. These workshops are in the relatively early stages
of implementation and their contribution to service improvement has yet to be
evaluated and analysis to identify common factors impacting on performance has
yet to be undertaken. We recommend that the Council reviews the outcomes
from the performance clinics so that any common issues might be identified and
shared.
24 One factor seen as improving the focus on performance is the production of more
frequent and timely performance indicators which enable managers and staff to
identify and address underperformance at an earlier stage and we were given
examples of where early identification of issues had enabled effective
interventions to take place. However there are areas of performance, including
approximately 30 per cent of PSA I targets where data is still collected annually
and we recommend that where practicable the Council reviews and where
practicable increases the frequency at which PSA performance data is monitored
and analysed.
Corporate issues
25 There are a number of ways in which the corporate centre impacts on
performance, through the Hillingdon Improvement Programme, the use of
Scrutiny and by building capacity. For example, by providing resources: to
develop individual staff capacity, re-design business processes as well as
through the appropriate investment and implementation of new technologies.
26 Corporate involvement is seen by senior staff as motivational rather than 'hands
on' and this includes the visibility of the leader of the Council and Chief Executive
in holding well publicised quarterly award ceremonies where the contribution of
staff in delivering improved performance is publicly recognised.
I
Public Sector Agreement
London Borough of Hillingdon