5. MEASURING PROGRESS

BEST VALUE PERFORMANCE PLAN

5.1 Gateshead Council provides its services in an open, transparent way. It has established a number of systems to ensure that its performance is measured and will devise new measurement systems where it considers it appropriate to do so. The following indicate current and anticipated progress in performance measurement:

5.2 The Performance Plan gives detailed information about Gateshead Council’s current performance compared with the previous two years, and compared with other councils in England, and outlines its future plans. The Annual Report is produced in June, and a summary is sent out in the preceding March to every household and business in the Borough.

5.3 In relation to the Spatial Development Strategy, the plan currently monitors, for example, the level of building of new and affordable homes, adaptation to climate change, carbon dioxide emissions, the provision of local wildlife sites and the amount of derelict land. Further indicators will be developed to measure the success of the plan and its policies, in terms of key aspects and outputs.

SUSTAINABILITY APPRAISAL (SA) AND STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT (SEA)

5.4 SA and SEA are processes to assess the potential impact of policies, plans and projects. To ensure that the right level of consideration is achieved, an Appraisal Framework has been developed which takes account of local circumstances and concerns and which comprises achievement-orientated objectives and measurable indicators and targets. The Appraisal Framework provides a yardstick against which the environmental, economic and social effects of plans can be tested.

5.5 Scott Wilson, a firm of consultants independent of the plan-making team and the Council, has assessed the strategy and policies in this plan using the Appraisal Framework to identify the ways in which they promote sustainable development, or conversely to point to circumstances where changes may be helpful. In addition to assessing the sustainability credentials of the plan’s strategy and policies, the Appraisal Framework can also be used to assist in the production of the Annual Monitoring Report. The Appraisal Framework has been included as Appendix 10 and those targets and indicators on which the plan has a direct impact have been identified.

THE COMMUNITY STRATEGY

5.6 The following key indicators have been identified in the Community Strategy, and have a direct relationship with UDP policies:

• percentage of residents satisfied with their neighbourhood as a place to live

• percentage of residents feeling safe in their neighbourhood by day and night

• area of Local Nature Reserves per 1000 population

• area of publicly accessible green spaces – open spaces/parks – per 1,000 population

• percentage of new homes built on previously developed land

• proportion of total trips to work and school made by walking, cycling or public transport and corresponding reduction in the proportion made by car

• amount of household waste recycled or composted

• percentage of residents satisfied that their home is adequate for their needs

• number of new affordable homes built

• percentage of lifetime homes built

• reduction in crime and the fear of crime

BRIDGING NEWCASTLEGATESHEAD - HOUSING MARKET RENEWAL PATHFINDER MEASUREMENT CRITERIA

5.7 The objectives of this plan are closely aligned to the overall objectives of the Newcastle Gateshead Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder: Bridging NewcastleGateshead (BNG) and more specifically to the outcomes as identified under each objective. The outcomes are monitored by collecting the relevant indicators. These indicators are collected by BNG on a annual, or in some instances a bi-annual basis, as required by ODPM. The Housing Market Renewal objectives and identified outcomes to be monitored are as follows:

• Objective 1: To enable more people to enter and sustain home ownership, reflecting housing aspirations and to help reduce concentrations of worklessness
  
  

  Outcomes:

  increase in home ownership reduction in the number of low value house sales house prices rising in line with the regional average

• Objective 2: To provide an improved choice of good quality, well designed homes through new development and investment in sustainable homes whilst replacing obsolete housing

  Outcomes:

  reduction in the number of vacant properties (by tenure) increase in the number of new homes built increase in the number of accessible homes increase in the quality of social housing increase in the quality of private sector housing increasing housing and economic development on brownfield land reduction in the number of properties in low demand

  
  
• Objective 3: To work with partners to improve neighbourhoods to provide a good quality of life and place, where it:
  
  

  	adds value draws in investment complements other initiatives that ‘narrow the gap’ between neighbourhoods with concentrations of deprivation and other areas, such as those to provide employment opportunities, raise incomes, improve health, educational achievement, community safety, services and transport
  Outcomes:	increase in neighbourhood satisfaction increase in community cohesion improved confidence amongst residents reduction in the amount of crime improved educational attainment increase in local employment improved life expectancy

ANNUAL MONITORING REPORT

5.8 The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 makes it a statutory requirement for Annual Monitoring Reports to be undertaken as part of the LDF process. In March 2005, the Government published A Good Practice Guide on Local Development Framework Monitoring.

5.9 Monitoring is essential to establish: a baseline from which progress can be measured; what is happening now; what may happen in the future; and then compare these trends against existing policies and targets to determine what needs to be done. Monitoring helps to address questions like:

• are policies achieving their objectives and in particular are they delivering sustainable development?

• have policies had unintended consequences?

• are the assumptions and objectives behind policies still relevant?

• are the targets being achieved?

5.10 Annual Monitoring Reports will show where any problems have arisen and provide a context for setting priorities in implementation or for change. They will therefore be made available to the agencies having responsibility for different aspects of the plan, giving an opportunity for response and comment. Statements will also form part of the supporting evidence for the plan's relevance to planning applications and appeals. Monitoring reports have been prepared for the last three financial years (2004/5, 2005/6 and 2006/7) and are accessible through the Council’s website.

STATEMENT OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

5.11 The preparation of a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) is a requirement of the new planning system and although Gateshead is progressing under the old system with the UDP, an SCI is required to set out how community involvement will be undertaken as part of the Local Development Framework (LDF) in the future.

5.12 The SCI contains elements such as:

• public and stakeholder access to information;

• the opportunity to contribute ideas;

• the opportunity to take an active part in developing proposals and options;

• the opportunity to be consulted and make representations; and

• the opportunity to receive feedback and be informed about progress and outcomes.

5.13 The SCI sets out how the community and other stakeholders can get involved in decisions on planning applications for development in the Borough by setting out exactly how neighbours and other members of the public will be told about new proposals and how they can make their views known to the Council. The SCI also encourages developers to undertake consultation with communities at the design and planning stages of significant planning applications before they are submitted to the Council.

5.14 The SCI gives details of how community and stakeholders will be involved in the future in developing the LDF, which will look at how the Borough may change in the future. The SCI gives a brief description of what documents will be included in the LDF and the stages that these documents must go through. The SCI identifies target groups that the Council is looking to involve in the LDF and examples of actual methods that can be used. Below is a list of possible consultation methods that could be used:

• Draft and Submission documents available for inspection

• letters to consultees

• web-based consultation

• media (local press, TV, radio)

• leaflets and posters

• public exhibitions/unstaffed static displays

• public meetings

• stakeholder meetings

• existing networks (town/parish councils)

5.15 The SCI has now been adopted.

< Previous Chapter | Top of page | Next Chapter >