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Embedding Performance Management Across Partnerships

Effective Performance Management is at the heart of an effective partnership

This guidance and the Hallmarks around which it is based are designed to help partnerships to work as effective as possible. In the very broadest sense, managing the performance of the partnership is the key to both being effective and knowing that the partnership is effective.

What do we mean by “performance”?

Partnership performance in its simplest form just means how well the partnership carries out and delivers the things for which they have responsibility. “Performance” does not mean “performance indicators” (i.e. numbers and statistics), although this can be a common assumption – for example when people equate simple crime statistics with partnership performance. Performance indicators help us examine what performance actually is, and may not cover all of the areas for which the partnership is responsible, unless they have been put in place specifically.

What do we mean by “performance management”?

Performance management is the practice of reviewing current performance and the factors that might affect future performance, and taking decisions in response to that information so that the appropriate actions can be taken in order to make that future performance better than it might otherwise be. All performance management is dependent on:

• Performance measurement – the collection of data about performance, and the processing of this into usable information (e.g. as performance indicators).
• Performance monitoring – analysing the information in order to make judgements about the level of performance (e.g. is performance getting better or worse?; is it worse or better than what we would expect?).

Successful performance management builds on the output of performance measurement and monitoring: decisions and actions are taken based upon the insights into performance that are given through these two steps. Performance management is therefore important because fundamentally it is about how resources are used.

The principles of performance management in this broadest sense are therefore implicit throughout this guidance, not least in the overall strategic actions of the partnership (assess, plan for action, deliver) around which the guide is set out. The Hallmarks describe the three broadest enablers of effective performance management:

Performance Frameworks

When people refer to a “performance framework” they most commonly mean the array of performance measurements and associated analysis/assessments that are gathered together in a structured way to support the performance management process (although this can be more properly described as a performance assessment framework to distinguish it from the wider performance management framework (which would refer to the whole process of managing performance, not just the analytical products).

Such frameworks should be reviewed (or established) as part of the process of agreeing strategic priorities and setting out strategic objectives, as at this point the partnership will need to understand how it can measure progress towards those objectives. The performance framework then provides a reference tool for the monitoring of progress.

Performance Assessment Frameworks

In the past, there has been a range of mechanisms for assessing crime and community safety. There is now a need to simplify this landscape and we have committed to working in partnership to do this.

APACS stands for ‘Assessments of Policing and Community Safety’ and is the name of the performance management framework that will replace a number of the assessment systems and performance management regimes currently in use. APACS will provide the Home Office and partners with the capability to monitor and assess performance in policing and community safety. Principally, it will replace the Policing Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF), which brought together a number of police performance indicators and qualitative judgements that the Home Office and HMIC had previously published separately.

The Home Office and its partners are now committed to refining the approach to managing the performance of the police, working alone or in partnership with others, on crime and community safety to ensure continued improvements. In developing APACS, we intend to simplify current Home Office arrangements and align the framework with those used by other partners (e.g. local authorities). In England, this will be aligned with the National Indicator Set for local authorities. We will work with Welsh stakeholders to ensure that the framework reflects the Welsh delivery landscape. APACS is to be introduced in April 2008 and the first assessments will be published in 2009, reporting on financial year 2008-09. This framework will:

• Simplify national and local performance arrangements.
• Align the performance management of crime, drugs and policing by combining existing performance assessment arrangements for these areas in the Home Office.
• Join up with the wider performance management frameworks of community safety partners.
• Broaden the scope of performance management to take account of important community safety work which has not been included in previous performance frameworks.

Why national performance assessment frameworks are useful for local partnerships

These national frameworks provide a common language for the discussion of performance issues between central government and local partnerships; they are also designed to support effective accountability. However, they also provide a useful resource for local partnerships in managing their own performance. At the most basic level, they could provide structure and (some) content for a local performance framework, although only if this would adequately support local objectives. More fundamentally, national frameworks provide a valuable source of information on how – on key performance measures - any given partnership compares with others.

iQuanta - crime data

Comparative analysis of key crime and community safety performance indicators reported by all areas is made available to all practitioners through the iQuanta website.

iQuanta supports the comparison of performance in three main ways:

• Comparison with peers (similar areas elsewhere).
• Comparison across time.
• Progress towards targets/direction of travel.

It acts as a one-stop shop for a wide range of performance information including:

• Crime numbers and rates.
• Detections and sanction detections.
• Offences brought to justice.

As well as this important resource, the website also includes a variety of other analytical resources and information, and provides several thousand users at local, regional and national level with a “common language” for discussion of performance issues. Information from iQuanta should therefore form a useful part of any partnership’s performance framework, as a supplement to more detailed local information and analysis.

iQuanta will be updated to reflect the performance measures included in APACS once they have been agreed.

Peer comparison – most similar groups

Most similar partnership groups (MSGs) are designed to underpin analysis of performance in a relative sense. The expected performance of an individual partnership is the average of the group of similar partnerships. So any variation in actual results from that average (for better or worse) is more likely to be down to the actions of the partnership. The individual partnership areas in a given MSG are not identical to the partnership in question, but the average of their characteristics (which are linked to demands on service) is very nearly identical.

Using MSGs, it is proven that a similar area, with similar demands, can reach a specific level of performance relative to peers. The “most similar” concept provides the most sophisticated peer comparison available in the crime reduction arena at the moment. It is therefore not likely to be realistic to argue that a given level of performance relative to peers is unachievable, but only how long it should take to get there. Importantly, when using such peer groups, a partnership could be expected to be significantly above average in areas of key priority. However, partnerships should not expect the same level of achievement in all performance areas, as there will always be a resource balance to be considered. More information on most similar groupings can be found in the Help section of the iQuanta website, which explains how the groups are created, why each police force and partnership has a unique group and provides other information.