Putting People First Guide - Department of Environment and Local ...

Putting People First Summary_Layout 1 16/10/2012 10:50 Page 184. delivering services efficientlyputting people First contains a range of measures to ensure that local government is organised andoperates as efficiently as possible, achieves the highest standards of performance and provides the bestpossible quality of service and degree of responsiveness to customers, citizens and taxpayers. the Firstreport of the lger implementation group is published on www.environ.ie. 105 of the 106recommendations made by the local government efficiency group will be implemented in this package.local authorities are prioritising customer service and will be required to provide good quality publicinformation, particularly in relation to local services and resource utilisation.service level agreements (slas) will be developed between government departments and localauthorities.service plans will be approved by elected members in respect of each programme for all authorities.a more robust system of performance standards and monitoring will be introduced in local government,with a focus on key indicators, outcomes rather than outputs, an emphasis on value for money, andcomparative performance of local authorities.existing service indicators will be replaced by an enhanced system of performance indicators which willdemonstrate a local authority’s overall performance in delivering a particular activity or service and willfacilitate evaluation against the performance standard for that activity or service. local authority annualreports will include a comprehensive review of performance against these standards.18