BEST VALUE

The State Government introduced Best Value Legislation in 1999 to ensure that councils are accountable to their communities and that they provide the best possible services, based on quality and value for money, to meet local circumstances and needs.

An integral part of Best Value is community consultation. We need to know that the services Council provide are appropriate, responsive, cost effective and meeting your expectations and values. Best Value is based on the following six principles:

1. cost and quality standards for all servicesBest Value Reports
2. responsiveness to community needs
3. accessible and appropriately targeted services
4. continuous improvement
5. regular community consultation
6. frequent reporting to the community

What is the Business Improvement @ Ballarat Framework (BI@B)?

The Business Improvement @ Ballarat Framework (BI@B) is a review process developed and used by the City of Ballarat to meet the Best Value principles. The process has evolved over the last three years and has had a significant impact on how the City of Ballarat business units focus on improving the services that they are currently providing and how they plan for future development.

The objectives of BI@B are to:

* Create a customer-focused organisation that identifies and responds to changing community needs as part of everyday service delivery.
* Drive business unit improvement and efficiency to deliver outstanding customer service.
* Improve user access, consultation and reporting
* Provide services that offer value for money

How is the Business Improvement @ Ballarat Framework applied?

The BI@B process is summarised in the following diagram:

The BI@B framework is applied at two levels. Firstly, via an Annual Review of all services as an integral part of the annual Business Planning process for each Business Unit, and secondly via a Priority Strategic Review facilitated by someone independent of the service.

Changes made to business operations in response to these reviews are regularly communicated to our community via the 'My Ballarat' community magazine.

Annual Review

Annual Business Plans must outline strategies/actions to address the following four questions and report quarterly on progress with their strategies/actions.

How will the Business Unit ensure quality customer service?
They must indicate how quality customer service will be delivered.

This may be achieved by the development of a Customer Charter, use of Corporate Service Standards, and through ongoing discussion with staff re their customer service performance.

How will the Business Unit measure customer satisfaction with products/services?
They must indicate how customer satisfaction will be measured.

Feedback may be gathered by surveying, focus groups, interviews and by aggregating informal feedback.

How will the Business Unit measure whether Performance Matches or Betters Like Providers from Other Organisations?
They must indicate how they will compare their performance to that of similar businesses.

Possible strategies may include benchmarking, visits to other organisations, active participation in service networks, questionnaires or phone conversations with other providers.

How will the Business Unit ensure effective service accessibility, consultation and reporting?
They must indicate how they will ensure that:

* users can access the business unit services/products,
* they will consult with users about their needs and proposed changes to services/products
* business unit achievements and responses to consultation are reported.

Possible strategies may include use of My Ballarat, City of Ballarat Website, Community Forums, regular media releases through local papers, local radio releases, or direct mail out to relevant community groups and organisations.

Priority Strategic Review

These reviews are an intense process that takes place over a three to twelve month period. An independent City of Ballarat officer with experience in organisational development (and/or an external consultant with technical expertise in the given functions) facilitates the process and provides an independent perspective and rigor to the reviews.

Outcomes from these reviews inform the Council Plan. They generally focus on broad themes or functions that impact on business performance, for example the 2008-2009 focus is "Building the capacity of the organisation by reviewing and developing the capacity of all leaders". There are two levels of Priority Strategic Review:

1. Systems Review
Outcome: Recommendations for future change.

2. Full Action Review
Outcomes: Systems Review outcome plus additional outcomes:

* Changes implemented and monitored
* Recommendations for future change

The stages involved in these two levels of review are summarized in the following table:

The City of Ballarat has prepared a "Facilitation Guide" and "Forms" to guide the facilitator through the process and to ensure consistency in approach.