Subject

Reviewing Our Performance
Reviewing Our Performance
Reviewing Our Performance
The Conservatives retained control of the Council following the elections in May 2015, so that the new
corporate plan adopted by the Council in February 2015 remained in operation for the whole of 2015/16 (see
http://www.swale.gov.uk/corporate-plan-2015-2018/). The new plan represents an evolution from previous
plans, containing 15 medium-term strategic objectives grouped under three headline ‘priority themes’ covering
the Council’s aspirations for the borough as a physical place, for the local community, and for its own
organisational culture and development. The Council’s Annual Report will set out in detail progress against
the Corporate Plan.
The Council continues to monitor its performance against a range of key performance indicators and, where
possible, to benchmark our performance with that of other local authorities. In addition to numerous indicators
in use within specialist teams, Cabinet, Scrutiny and the management team monitor a set of 40 ‘corporate’
Our Performance Indicators 2015/16
Compared to Other Councils
4
indicators on a regular basis.
This set is balanced across
services to ensure that taken
as a whole it is representative
of Council performance across
the board. When minor
changes are excluded,
performance improved on 43
percent of these indicators in
2015/16 compared to 2014/15,
while it deteriorated on 26
percent of indicators.
Approximately half of these
‘corporate’ performance
indicators are based on
externally defined measures
such as best value indicators
or national indicators (NI), and
are thus comparable with other
councils. When compared to
the latest available national
datasets, 80 percent of
Swale’s comparable indicators performed above the median in 2015/16, including 35 percent of indicators in
the best quartile. The remaining 20 percent was split equally between indicators in the third and worst
quartiles. This is Swale’s best ever result in terms of national benchmarking, as illustrated in the figure above.
The Council publishes a summary performance report each month on our website at
http://www.swale.gov.uk/managing-performance/
Our Sustainability and Environmental Impact
The Council is committed to tackling the causes and effects of climate change and in January 2013 became
one of the first lower-tier authorities in the country to sign up to Climate Local, the revised version of the
Nottingham Declaration. In this, we have set out our targets and commitments for tackling climate change,
including a year-on-year reduction in carbon emissions of 2.6 percent across the borough and measures to
monitor and improve water use, biodiversity, flood protection and the green economy. To date we remain on
track to meet these targets. Each year the Council also produces a greenhouse gas report, which continues to
show progress in reducing carbon emissions from our own estate. The Kent Environment Strategy has
recently been revised and has been adopted by Swale and other Kent districts. We work closely with Kent
County Council (KCC) and other districts on climate-related issues, and will continue to do so to deliver the
objectives of the new strategy.