Best Value
Best Value Service Reviews
Best value service reviews ask searching questions about what the council, its partners and contractors offer local people. A fundamental and continuous requirement of the review process is to challenge us and justify why our services exist in the way they do. Best Value is all about innovation and not accepting what we have always done as being the only and necessarily right way.
In summary Best Value Service reviews have four clear perspectives:
- Looking backwards at the service’s performance
- Looking outwards at the performance of others and at the views of service users and other stakeholders
- Looking inwards to challenge and test current methods and approaches
- Looking forward to set targets for future improvements in performance and identify the action needed to achieve those targets
This should involve a fundamental rethink, which has the potential for step change. It should consider ways in which technology can be used in the service and take account of likely future changes which may affect the service.
Statutory guidance requires reviews to apply the '4Cs' to service reviews.
- CHALLENGE why, how and by whom a service is being provided
- COMPARE performance with others across a range of relevant indicators, taking into account the views of both service users and potential suppliers
- CONSULT local stakeholders as to their experience of local services and their aspirations for the future
- COMPETE using fair and open means wherever necessary to secure efficient and effective services
The type’s of service reviews
Strategic Reviews - geared to achieving strategic improvements and developing integrated policy and operational solutions
Departmental Level Reviews - usually consider a single service or a discrete operational area of a service and are a means of identifying service improvements and efficiencies
Efficiency Reviews - smaller scale reviews of operational matters within a service
