Let me entertain you

I spent the whole of yesterday speaking - it seemed like. First I spent a while speaking to a contingent of Japanese district council employees from the precinct of Fukuoka. They wanted to know all about Best Value. I don't speak to foreign delegations that often, but perhaps 3 or 4 times a year. They're never quite the same and it's usually what they want to know is different than what they've implied in their email request. Most people say they want to know about Best Value - but then it turns out they really want to know about CPA or Local Area Agreements - or maybe something else entirely. So what I do is take along a slide pack with around 30 or 40 slides covering a whole range of improvement initiatives. I then spend part of the time asking what people would really like to hear about.

But the good people from Fukuoka really did want to know about Best Value - and I did my best to answer their 20 questions (quite literally - they were on a piece of paper - in Japanese). For example "which services have improved the most through Best Value?" Answers on a postcard please.

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After that I spent the evening at the London Borough of __________, talking with councillors (scrutiny councillors in particular) about their role in performance management. Like a number of London boroughs, _______ has quite a few new councillors after the May elections- and they were eager to see how performance management might help them in their roles. One councillor, though, was less than keen - and a less than generous commentator might say that she even heckled me.

This councillor was down on performance management and didn't believe that it was worth the the time and effort and was quite vocal about it. But the funny thing was, she actually had a pretty good grasp of performance management - what individual indicators can be used for and what their limitations are. I said so, and while I'm not sure it made much of an impression on her - I think her fellow councillors took notice. It's important to realise that performance indicators can't tell you everything - they're only an indication, after all. Councillors must challenge and ask for more information. Councillors also have a responsibility - as anyone on a corporate board would - that officers have the right tools to support improvement and accountbality. Robust performance management won't do that on its own, but it can be an effective tool.


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