Performance

Bristol is a successful city, with a growing international profile.  Our dynamic, innovative and creative economy means that Bristol's contribution to the national economy outweighs the size of our population. We have been recognised by the Centre for Cities in their "Cities Outlook 2012 Report," as one of the areas outside of London leading the way out of the recession and ‘punching above our weight’ for the economy as a whole. We are also forecast to continue to grow at a faster rate than the UK as a whole.

In contrast, our budget, like all other councils throughout the country, has been reduced from £400m in 2009 to £330m in 2013.

This will inevitably mean that we will no longer be able to deliver some services, or will have to deliver services differently. However we will continue to work with our partners to ensure that we deliver value for money.

To see how well we are delivering against our priorities we have developed a number of performance measures.

What we want to achieve

We want to make Bristol a top rated ‘excellent’ authority.  One that we can all be proud of, and a great place to live and to work. Working alongside our partners, we need our services to be:

• driven by the aspirations and feedback we receive from you, the citizens of Bristol,
• targeted at those in greatest need and the most vulnerable in our City, and
• focused on delivering value for money.

Our ambition is to be a top performing council and a leading city in Europe. Working in collaboration woth our partners, this page describes what we want to achieve for the city. There are links to find further information.

Our Sustainable Community Strategy – 20:20 Plan

The 20:20 plan has been developed by The Bristol Partnership and features 4 Strategic Outcomes for our city.  These Outcomes aim to make Bristol one of the top ten cities in Europe within the next decade. This can be done through making it sustainably safer, more prosperous, without health or wealth inequalities and a place where people, families, and communities can thrive.

Our Corporate Plan

Our Corporate Plan sets out our vision for the council and for Bristol and includes what we will do over the next three years to deliver this. It will be closely linked with the 20:20 plan.

The 2008-2011 Corporate Plan (pdf, 1.5 MB)

Annual Performance

Each year, Bristol City Council produces an Annual Report which sets out how we have performed against our key indicators in the previous year. This is supplemented with information on the future targets we have set for ourselves.

The 2009/2010 Annual Review Report

Performance of Our Services

We are currently working on introducing new reports, looking at issues such as value for money and customer satisfaction.

Another useful source of information is the OnePlace website which provides an independent overview of our performance against key indicators in comparison to other local authorities in the country. 

How we will deliver

The council’s performance management strategy underpins our vision for Bristol, setting out a framework for how we will deliver and report against our aims and objectives. It contributes to the good governance of the city.

The strategy is aimed primarily at council staff and Councillors but may also be of interest to partners, customers and the public who would like to know more about how we manage performance.

Key elements of the Performance Management Strategy

Our Performance Management Strategy combines the key components of consistent, high quality reporting and action to address risk areas.

We structure our performance management approach around the principle of ‘Pounds, People (our customers and our workforce) and Performance’ and our strategy focuses on four related priority areas for improvement:

• better use of customer feedback,
• a focus on those in greatest need or ‘most vulnerable,'
• embedding 'value for money', especially in service delivery, and
• better use of benchmarking.

Our performance reporting escalates risk areas to our Strategic Leadership Team, the Cabinet and the relevant Scrutiny Commissions for action as appropriate, whilst our in depth improvement interventions address identified areas of underperformance. 

Corporate Performance and Improvement Team

The Corporate Performance and Improvement Team is responsible for managing the delivery of the Performance Management Strategy and ensuring that a planning and reporting framework is in place across the council.