Productivity Plan 2024

As part of the Local Government Finance Settlement 2024 to 2025, we are required to develop and publish a Productivity Plan.

In response to the Government’s criteria, our Productivity Plan sets out how we ensure that we make the best use of our resources in planning and delivering council services, including our plans for how we use technology and data, and highlights barriers to progress that we think the Government could help to reduce or remove.

How we have transformed the way we design and deliver services to make better use of resources:

The council has transformed the design and delivery of services in recent years and efficiencies have been made. There has been a reduction in the number of council employees overall but with a maintained focus on delivering statutory and core services. Transformation has included:

• The Taking Stock programme throughout 2023, reviewed our structures, services and how we operate, gathering staff feedback and examining data around staffing structures and performance. Five key themes emerged from the analysis, and underpinned the resulting re-organisation: resilience, accountability, spans of control, minimal impact on front line services delivery and making best use of our IT systems. The new council structure went live on 1 April 2024. The target savings from the salary budget was £1.5m (excluding on-costs) and we have achieved £1.485m.
• Priority Based Budgeting (PBB) has been adopted, allowing limited budget resources to be allocated to areas of service that have the highest priority outcomes for residents. 
• Our Customer Access Strategy, developed using customer feedback, sets out the council’s approach to enhancing services through new technology and led to the introduction of a new Customer Access Point in the council's Civic Centre. This helps those who are not digitally enabled to self-serve, or who require support in learning how to do this, to access the ‘My Account’ service which personalises and makes accessing services easier.  The council is increasingly delivering its services digitally, with a significant increase in transactions through this free online platform - with more than 70% of customers accessing through their mobile devices. The service is "mobile first", meaning it is more transactional with less steps for the user and they can see personalised information in one place, such as waste collections, benefits and council tax. They can also make payments and track progress of reports made. Through transforming the website design, automation has further improved productivity.

The interventions outlined above have driven improvements, achieved efficiencies and developed resilience across the council. Other changes have also been made to further improve services with positive effects including:

Housing

• In 2020, the housing service was brought back in-house from an under-performing arms-length management organisation (ALMO). The housing team worked closely with the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) building a new tenant-focused service and regaining full compliance with regulation within one year. The service continued to work with the RSH as a pilot council for its new regulatory regime and helped shape the new regulatory framework for social housing.  Productivity considerations have been a key driver in the new approach.
• Working with the Strategic Tenant Advisory Panel (STAP), Housing Online (through MyAccount) has been produced. This gives tenants access to council services at their own convenience 24/7, enabling them to amend details, view and download rent statements, make payments, set up Direct Debits, view planned works and request repairs.
• The Housing Options Service focuses on homelessness prevention to help households remain in their current homes or move to suitable alternative accommodation, reducing the need for temporary accommodation. The council has the lowest level of temporary accommodation use in Kent.

Household Waste Collection

• In 2021, our contractor undertook a review of the collection routes to optimise rounds to vehicles, maximising efficiencies and reducing carbon emissions. Further route changes are planned this year. This includes introducing alternate weekly collections and food service to our hard-to-access, ultra narrow round and a wholescale review of the garden waste collection round to create efficiencies and free up additional capacity.  Future changes will look at improving communal recycling performance in line with the simpler recycling proposals.

Future plans for transformation over the next two years include the implementation of a new finance system to deliver a more modern, flexible cloud-based system. This will allow intuitive, digital self-service processes that improve user access and create opportunities for transformational change.

An ICT review is being undertaken in conjunction with SOCITM, which will lead to a new Corporate Digital Strategy and refresh of the Customer Access Strategy. This seeks to identify benefits ranging from cost optimisation and enhanced efficiency to improved service delivery, mitigating risk as far as possible, including cyber security requirements and help adapt to evolving technological landscapes while meeting the needs of residents.

The council recognises the role capital spending can play in transforming existing services and unlocking new opportunities:

• The General Fund Medium Term Capital Programme includes a Flexible Use of Capital Receipts as the council expects to realise income from selling capital assets of £3.16m over the period 2024/25 - 2027/28. This will be used to fund change activities, securing service improvements, financing service transformation growth bids and investment in IT infrastructure and digital transition / channel shift.
• The council has utilised capital spending, including grant support, to boost growth and improve services through: land acquisition and assembly at Otterpool Park, a new garden town of up to 10,000 new homes, to provide a long-term return to support services in the district.
  • Acquiring commercial property to facilitate regeneration and economic growth
  • Intervening to address market failure in bringing forward residential and commercial land
  • Acquiring a former department store (Folca) in Folkestone to provide a base for public services, a medical centre and fit-for-purpose commercial space to drive new footfall and economic activity in the town centre.

To enhance and improve levels of public consultation and engagement, the council created a digital, interactive plan for Folkestone town centre and used virtual reality and gamification. This technology has surpassed expectations in the volumes of people consulted and the demographic reach.

Productivity across the council is monitored through a number of mechanisms, including a robust performance management framework, service reviews and budget monitoring updates, including a continuous drive for further improvements. Information on performance monitoring and other metrics are  monitored and reported.

The preventative work that has been delivered to support longer term cost pressures includes:

• A dedicated Welfare Team supporting customers and signposting them appropriately, administering several different central government funding streams to maximize and target support to the most vulnerable qualifying residents e.g. NHS Test and Trace (self-isolation), Household Support, Discretionary Housing and council tax financial support funds.
• Working effectively with partners to address issues that arise from the asylum and migrant populations in the district. This has resulted in the provision of direct support for those housed in hotels and mobilising voluntary sector support for those living in Napier Barracks.
• Use of multi-purpose community hubs to provide services in local communities that support our most vulnerable residents.