Agenda item

A report of the Director of Legal and Governance Services was presented to outline the Council’s approach to performance and risk management and summarise activity in the past year and planned activity for 2021, in order to provide the Committee with assurance that the Council had robust arrangements in place for these disciplines.

The report replaced the previously separate reports on programme and project and risk management in order to more clearly outline the inter-relationship of governance of these disciplines with organisational performance management.

Revised Performance Management, Programme and Project Management and Risk and Opportunity Management Policies were approved by the Executive in February 2020, in order to maximise their impact on the Council’s strategic aims and priorities, as set out within the Strategic Plan.

Middlesbrough Council approved a Strategic Plan for the period 2020-2023 on 15 January 2020 which included the Mayor’s priorities.  However, later that month, the Covid-19 Pandemic reached the UK. 

The response to the Pandemic and the recovery from it, would have a significant impact on local people, communities and the local economy, and fundamentally change the way the Council does business in the future. On 16 December the Council approved a public consultation on a set of revised priorities for the remainder of the Elected Mayor of Middlesbrough’s term. These priorities formed basis of a revised Strategic Plan to be considered by Council in February 2021.

While Covid-19 had been disruptive in terms of planned performance, a number of significant achievements had been made in line with the Council’s Strategic Plan.  These had been reported to the Executive and Overview and Scrutiny Board on a quarterly basis and were summarised in the December report to Council. 

During the last 12 months there had been a strong focus on improving the use of performance data within Children’s Services and embedding a strong performance management culture within the service. Corporate and Directorate officers worked closely together to deliver improvements to performance management that have been recognised and commended by the Government-appointed Commissioner, the Department for Education and the Independent Chair of the Service’s Improvement Board

During the next year a detailed work plan that would underpin the new Strategic Plan would be considered by the Executive in March.  An integrated monthly performance cycle would be implemented that would involve the development and provision of Directorate Plans and associated monitoring arrangements at that level.

The Programme and Project Management (PPM) policy and its underpinning framework provided a standardised approach to the governance of programmes and projects, including standard documentation.  Since the introduction of this policy in 2015, the Council’s approach to PPM has matured and a number of improvements had been identified and implemented. 

An analysis was undertaken in the year on the impact of Covid-19 on time, cost, scope and benefits.  This informed the review of the Council’s Medium-Term Financial Plan, budgeting for 2021/22 and the forthcoming revision of the Council’s Strategic Plan and would be kept under continuous review.

A number of changes would be finalised by the end of 2020/21 to core documentation and support structure in place to reflect the above and enhance delivery of programmes and projects going forward and details were included in the submitted report.

During 2020 the Council risk appetite was refreshed reviewed and revised to bring it in line with the Council’s current financial standing so that risks were being captured and scored in line with this. All risk management documentation had also been reviewed and updated to take on board these changes.

A summary of the Strategic Risk Register was considered every three months by the Executive as part of a report on performance against delivery of the Strategic Plan and other key performance measures, with the same report considered by Overview and Scrutiny Board. A summary of the Strategic Risk Register at Quarter Two 2020/21 was attached at Appendix 1 to the submitted report.  The Committee was invited to look at this from a Work Programme perspective.  Improvements to risk management that were underway were outlined in the submitted report.

The Council’s risk management arrangements were audited during the year, and received an opinion of Substantial Assurance. During 2021/22 work would be undertaken to build on the progress made in 2020/21. 

AGREED that:

1.    the information provided was received and noted.

2.      details of the social value model included in the Programme and Project Management framework would be circulated to Committee Members.