What you are asking is quite a feet. Whilst I understand where your brief is coming from, the definition of high performing harks back to the performance driven agenda rather than one based on quality and customer feedback. My authority is by no means a high performing authority as we are not driven by false targets. Analysis shows that many high performing organisations do so at the expense of the bigger picture. For example, if a planning officer is chasing his eight week targets (S)he may be tempted to permit a scheme which was of poor design but not bad enough to refuse, or to refuse a scheme and seek to negotiate a better scheme in the resubmission. Either way (s)he hits the target, but at the expense of bad planning or increased costs as resubs are generally free. A better measure is the quality of the decision, a measure we subscribe to. This does not mean at any cost, and therefore we have innovated our processes in many ways. Home working is facilitated by citrix computing, but is not promoted as a means of day-to-day working. I have carried our profiling of the planning team and the tasks (as part of an MA) and whilst I find home working is compatible for the personality type of most planners, the loss of social interaction and discourse is counter productive. Customers have also commented that access to case officers is a high priority, and seeing that the main reason planners cite for wanting to work at home is to avoid the interruptions, you are likely to get increased performance, but also increased complaints and reducing customer satisfaction. Some council's operate a duty officer, but in my experience 75% of the calls have to be handed on to the case officer anyway, and again the customer is dissatisfied with the Council. Systems Thinking, as promoted by the Vanguard Group suggests that dealing with a call first time every time is the way to not only increase customer satisfaction but also save money. HOWEVER, turning to the case study. At Stroud we have a number of services and products that assist officers work remotely, the best appears so low tech that it is universally accepted by the officers and customers alike. We use a data capture pen and paper to make notes on site, and have them remotely up loaded to our document management system. This saves double entry and ensures data integrity. It has some handwriting recognition capabilities, but these are rarely used as it’s the handwriting and drawings we want to capture. I would question, in a planning context, the value of any system which promotes live data transfer between a device and the back office… how important is it that your site notes are available on the website before you can start the car to go to the next visit… save your money. If you want to know more, contact me. Phil.skill@stroud.gov.uk Our in house systems are however more slick and automated.
