The Towards and Beyond Excellence Plan is the council’s key internal corporate improvement plan which will provide essential information for the Shared Services agenda as well as providing key information for internal service performance.

South Hams has entered into a formal commitment with Teignbridge and West Devon Councils to consider shared services particularly in the areas of support services, management and back office administration.

This plan will be essential in securing value for money for service users and the taxpayer, as any dip in performance or increase in service cost can be identified quickly and action taken to investigate the likely cause and put things back on track. Service processes will also be looked at to see where efficiencies can be made and look at how to improve service effectiveness.

Our Improvement Vision

As a valued resident, you will receive the most cost-effective, consistent and efficient service possible

What does this mean?

 We will focus our resources in accordance with residents’ priorities
 We will improve how we provide services in ways that make a difference to our customers
 We will challenge our costs and reduce the cost of administration
 We will work with other authorities in order to improve service delivery and reduce costs
 We will make our services easier to access, which is more flexible and convenient to our customers.

Although the Vision has an external focus, the Towards and Beyond Excellence Plan is about considering internal processes in order to improve the way we work. It is about providing the right services, to the people who need those services in the most efficient manner.

How will we do this?

The improvement agenda at the present time is clogged up with initiatives such as Value for Money, Shared Services, e-government, t-government and Gershon. There is a danger that if considered in isolation from one another these initiatives might contribute to review fatigue or worse might actually produce contradictory actions and unnecessary duplication of effort. The Towards and Beyond Excellence Plan will ensure that each of the initiatives is considered in a co-ordinated and informative way as part of a continuous improvement process.

The Towards and Beyond Excellence Plan brings together the following work streams:

 Budget Consultation – we will undertake an annual consultation to determine which services are most important to residents
 Service Planning and Financial Planning – we will ensure that our business planning processes demonstrate a clear link between budget decisions and outcomes and performance   
 Lean Reviews – we will review the way we provide all of our services, with a primary focus on what is best for the customer and getting things right first time
 Value for Money – we will look at the cost and performance of all our services to ensure that we are getting the best outcomes from our budget. We will reduce the cost of administration and ensure that budgets are only increased where there is a clear addition to or improvement in service  
 Shared Services – we will work with West Devon and Teignbridge Councils on reducing our costs, particularly in back office administration, by merging our overheads and support services
 Gershon – we will publish an annual list of the savings we have made by working more efficiently
 Customer First – we will make our services easier to receive by simplifying our processes and offering ways to receive our services that are more convenient to customers

Central to the Towards and Beyond Excellence Plan is the commitment to ensure all services challenge the relationship between cost of service on one hand and the quality and level of service on the other hand. A baseline of costs and performance for all services will be established using 2006/07 data and changes in the relationship between costs and performance will be charted in order to provide meaningful data with respect to use of resources and Value for Money.


The Towards and Beyond Excellence Plan is broken down into the following sections:

1. Doing the right things
2. Establishing a baseline for costs and outcomes
3. Improving our processes
4. Improving access to services and information
5. Realising the Benefits


1. Doing the Right Things

Why are we doing this?

We should be able to demonstrate that our key decisions with respect to resources and service delivery are made in accordance with residents’ priorities and an understanding of the needs of our communities.

How will we do this?

We will use consultation results, research and our understanding of South Hams to develop action plans which reflect residents’ priorities and undertake further consultation where necessary on our annual budget with residents prior to setting a financial strategy to underpin our priorities.


2. Establishing a baseline for costs and outcomes

Why are we doing this?

In order to be able to establish meaningful data with regards to Value for Money it is necessary to monitor the relationship between costs and performance. A budget saving is not necessarily an efficiency if there is a more than a proportionate reduction in service. Similarly a five percent improvement in service is not cost effective if it costs ten percent more to achieve.  We will therefore work to ensure that savings are a result of efficiencies and are not necessarily delivered by reducing services.

How will we do this?

There is an important link between costs and outcomes which will be established. By calculating a baseline for both costs and performance for all services it will be possible to achieve the following:
 Measure the effectiveness of improvement initiatives on Value for Money by tracking changes in the relationship between costs and performance
 Compare our services with one another in terms of cost and performance
 Compare our services with the best performers nationally
 Specifically compare service costs and performance with West Devon District Council who are using the same methodology
 Ensure that savings are a result of efficiencies and are not necessarily delivered by reducing services

A methodology has been developed which diagrammatically shows the relationship between costs and performance/outcomes. This will enable Value for Money and cost effectiveness to be charted over time and will also enable the impact of budget changes and improvement work to be mapped.

3. Improving our processes

Why are we doing this?

In the previous section, we established a commitment to assess the Value for Money of all services by monitoring the relationship between costs and performance over time. Having established a baseline position, we need to demonstrate a commitment to improving cost effectiveness by reviewing the ways in which we provide services.

By reviewing our services and making them more cost effective, we will generate the ‘Gershon’ savings which can be used to invest in priority areas or to the reduction in Government funding arising from the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007.

How will we do this?

The following four key initiatives have been adopted for considering improvements to the way we work and in doing so improve the Value for Money relationship between costs and outcomes:
• Lean systems thinking
• Shared services
• Income generation
• Procurement

Lean systems thinking enables better more cost effective services by focussing on the needs of the customer. It centres on process review and improvement. Improvements are delivered through the identification and removal of ‘waste’ within the system which is produced by inefficient and or unnecessary processes, duplication and rework. In short, it places an emphasis on ‘getting things right first time’ for the customer so that additional work to ‘put things right’ is avoided.

A simple example of lean systems thinking working to improve quality of service and reduce cost is in the processing of a claim or application. By ensuring that applications are received completed and with all accompanying evidence, applications can be processed quicker with considerably less time spent contacting the customer for further information. The customer receives a quicker more professional service and savings are achieved through the avoidance of unnecessary processes, administration and duplication.
There are an increasing number of case studies in Local Government which show that lean systems thinking has had a significant impact on both costs and performance.

Shared services provides the opportunity for South Hams to make significant savings particularly in the areas of support services, management and back office administration. South Hams has entered into a formal commitment with Teignbridge and West Devon Councils to consider shared services and has joined with the other Devon Districts and Devon County Council in an initiative to improve two tier working.

Income generation work will focus on ensuring that the Councils assets and resources are being utilised not only to maximise existing income streams but consider potential new sources of income.

Procurement work will focus on ensuring that the Council is deriving Value for Money in respect of its spending by seeking innovative solutions to reduce costs of purchases and the purchase process.


4. Improving access to services and information

Why are we doing this?

In the previous section, we underlined our commitment to improve the cost effectiveness of our service provision by improving our processes around the customer. However, service provision is not truly effective unless customers have good access to those services at their (and not the Council’s) convenience. We aim to satisfy our customers at the first point of contact in their access channel of choice.

Wherever possible we want our customers to access our services and information quickly and easily. This means offering a ‘channel’  which is convenient to the customer at the time of transaction. Wherever possible and, more importantly, appropriate we will encourage customers to use more cost effective delivery channels such as the website which has the additional benefit of offering 24/7 access.

How will we do this?

Better access will be delivered by providing the customer with information about our services, understanding their needs, developing access channels to meet those needs and then ensuring those access channels are utilised by all services. This process is listed below:

Promoting Our Services
Understanding Customer Needs
Developing Access Channels
Promoting Self Service over the web
Making full use of all access channels

Promoting our services is essential to ensure that all customers are aware of the services that are available to them. We will develop an information and communications plan using our South Hams branding to continually improve information on access to services.

Understanding customer needs is a pre-requisite of designing systems and processes to meet those needs. Different customers have different needs, often involving more than one area of service, as well as different preferences for accessing services. We will work to gain a better understanding of all our customers’ needs through demand analysis techniques, consistent feedback surveys and consultation.

Developing access channels so that they can meet customers’ needs is an important factor in delivering better access. Having established customer needs it is important to assess our capability to meet those needs across existing channels which include:

 Face to face – both through Customer Service Centre
 Telephone – via a ‘one-stop’ approach hosted within Customer Services
 Web / E-mail – by development of a transactional website (see below)
 Letter – by effective processes for responding to written requests
 Text – speedy and convenient channel for more straightforward requests
 Assisted delivery – using a third party to assist access to services

Promoting Self Service  - Transactional website: Whilst it is important that customers are able to choose how to contact the council, with a reasonable certainty that they will be consistently well served over all channels, we will encourage self service through the web, as the most cost effective, ‘open all hours’ access channel. We will only encourage this, however, where the website is capable of providing services quickly, completely, reliably and effectively. Our website will be developed to allow more transactional service delivery to be undertaken.

Customer First – Right First Time: Having promoted services, developed an understanding of customer needs and the access channels to meet these needs, we will make an assessment for each service of whether we are offering consistent, complete and reliable service delivery through each channel. This work combined with lean review will allow us to redesign service delivery so that we are offering ‘one-stop service’ through the customer’s chosen channel in accordance with service standards set out in the Customer First Plan adopting a ‘right first time’ approach.


5. Realising the Benefits

Why are we doing this?

It is important to demonstrate that the work we have undertaken in respect of improvement and access has resulted in positive benefits either in terms of improved outcomes or reduced costs or a combination of the two. Additionally, it is also important to demonstrate that all the Council’s services are actually delivering the benefits set out in service plans, particularly in relation to additional budget growth bids.

How will we do this?

 By setting and monitoring ‘Gershon’ efficiency saving targets by service
 By monitoring changes in the relationship between costs and outcomes compared with the baseline position set out in the ‘establishing a baseline between costs and outcomes’ section
 By specifying clearly the anticipated outcomes arising from growth in the budget (i.e. cost pressures) and by monitoring to ensure that these outcomes are achieved