CACI wins major contract with the Dorset Performance Management Partnership

CACI and the Dorset Performance Management Partnership have today announced that they will be developing a countywide performance management system to support work to deliver better public services across the county.

The Partnership is one of the initiatives supported by Government Office South West through their Capacity Building Fund, and is aimed at improving services through more effective coordination and shared working between the County Council, the six district and borough councils, and other community partners.

CACI will be responsible for developing the web-based system, which utilises QPR ScoreCard technology, as well as providing consultancy, training and support for the programme. The contract is valued at nearly £200,000.

QPR ScoreCard is a tool that will allow each of the partner authorities to collect, monitor and report performance information against their corporate plans, Best Value Performance Indicators, CPA scores and Service Plans, as well as providing an easy way to benchmark against the performance of the other partner authorities. It will also be the principal tool for monitoring and managing the progress of partnership activities such as the Local Area Agreement.

Commenting on the programme, John Alexander, Programme Manager for the DPMP, said:

“Each of the partner authorities expects to realise two major benefits: firstly, to improve their own performance management processes, for example by reducing the amount of time spent on collecting information and increasing that which is spent on analysis and improvement; and secondly, to give better support to county-wide initiatives such as the Local Area Agreement and the Community Strategy.”

Alexander continues,

“What made CACI’s QPR system so attractive was that it’s a tool that we can give to any number of staff, as well as to community partners, without any restrictions on licensing. During the procurement process, we visited Derby City Council, where they have 3,000 people, including councillors, using the system, and we found that very impressive.

“Within Dorset County Council alone we expect that anything up to 8,000 staff will eventually be able to use the system. Obviously, not all of those will be building scorecards or models, but every employee with access to a computer should be able to use the system to see where their job fits with the corporate plan and the community strategy, which goal they’re working towards and how well they’re doing. QPR ScoreCard allows them to do that by allowing them to view their own work within the bigger picture.”

In addition to the benefits expected from the system itself, the Partnership has also gained through substantial procurement efficiencies and cost savings as a result of buying as a consortium. The Dorset Partnership has saved in excess of £150,000 by procuring in this way.

The initial phase of the programme will involve Dorset County Council, West Dorset, Purbeck and East Dorset District Councils. The other three councils - North Dorset District Council, Weymouth & Portland Borough Council and Christchurch Borough Council, already have their own systems for measuring performance, and it is expected that the output from those systems will eventually be incorporated into the Partnership’s QPR database, to present a complete picture of local authority performance throughout Dorset. The Dorset Performance Management Partnership will go live with the system in November to coincide with LAA reporting.

The Dorset Performance Managment Partnership

The Dorset Performance Management Partnership is sponsored by the Dorset Chief Executives’ Group with support from Government Office South West. Its terms of reference are to:

	Provide additional capacity for councils within Dorset to support the drive to improve their performance management processes
	Facilitate the performance management of shared targets, thereby enabling performance management of the Local Area Agreement and other shared community planning priorities
	Explore opportunities for alignment and modernisation of performance management processes and systems in relation to common performance requirements

For further information please contact Angela Norman on 0161 848 8074 or email anorman@caci.co.uk