Agenda item

            The Board received a report from the Strategic Director Corporate and Policy informing the Sub-Committee of a decision to purchase a web based Performance Management Software System for use by the Council and the Halton Strategic Partnership. 

            To date the Council had operated an effective performance monitoring system, largely based upon internally developed templates, to provide performance information to relevant Officers and Members at an organisational and partnership level.  Given a number of changes that had occurred within the operating environment it would be unlikely that such arrangements would remain effective in the medium term.  These changes included:

• The introduction of a single National Indicator Data Set from April 2008.  Such measures were no longer confined to the outputs of the organisation, as were the Best Value Performance Indicators that they replaced, but were much more outcome focused and relate to information that originates from both the Council and its partner agencies.

• The strengthening of Local Area Agreement (LAA) and the introduction of the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) framework that places far greater emphasis upon the collaboration between the Council and its partners in achieving outcomes for the local communities that they serve.

• The ongoing need to make efficiency savings in light of tighter fiscal constraint.

Taking account of such changes the Council, as had most others, had recognised the potential benefits of acquiring a web based performance software system that would deliver medium-term benefits that would include:-

• Reducing the duplication currently incurred in the reporting of progress towards objectives in the Community Strategy, Corporate Plan and LAA. 

• Improved quality, accessibility and timeliness of information required by the Council’s decision making processes.

• Addressing issues raised in the most recent Corporate Performance Assessment concerning the need to improve partnership performance arrangements.

Ten tenders were submitted by vendors, costs ranging from £22,000 to £188,000.  The evaluation led to the 4 lowest cost suppliers being shortlisted to present their system to a panel.  As a result of this exercise and following visits to relevant reference sites by the performance specialists and the Corporate Performance Team,  the two lowest cost suppliers were identified as primary options; namely ‘Ten Software’ and ‘Inphase’. 

The final decision was taken to acquire the Performance Plus software system as although the cost of acquiring the system was higher, it had medium term advantages in that it demonstrated superior IT and system specifications.

It was noted that the system implementation would begin in June and involve a series of training workshops for system use being delivered to staff both within the Council and within relevant partner agencies.  Concurrent to such workshops, work would be undertaken in regards to system design and development and data transfer and it was envisaged that the system would become operational during the second quarter of the current financial year.

It was noted that the cost of the software would be shared equally between the Halton Strategic Partnership and Halton Borough Council.  The Council’s contribution over the three years could be met from within existing budgets.  The system would be externally hosted to facilitate access by external partners, and so there were no additional hardware costs falling to the Council.  It was also confirmed that there was no need to employ additional staff, as the administration of the system would be carried out by the Policy Team.

RESOLVED:  That the report is noted.