Annual Self-Assessment 2023-24

SA2 - Corporate Planning, Performance and Working With Others

SA2.1 - Corporate planning and performance

 

Assessment of current performance – how well are we doing?

  • The Council approved a new Corporate Strategy 2023-2028 in May 2023.  The Strategy covers a four-year rolling period and will be reviewed annually.  The Strategy very much builds on the political priorities set by Cabinet in its Programme for the Administration document.
  • The Corporate Strategy is the vehicle through which the Council sets its statutory Well-being Objectives.  Following a period of development and engagement to ensure these objectives aligned with Cabinet’s political direction, the Public Services Board’s new Well-being Plan (see section 4.1) and taking into account the views of Pembrokeshire’s citizens and stakeholders, the Council agreed 12 new Well-being Objectives that provide the strategic framework for everything the Council activity moving forward.
  • Nine of these Well-being Objectives are focussed externally on the delivery of key services to residents, built around the following thematic priority areas – education, social care, housing, economy, decarbonisation and the nature emergency, sustainable communities, welsh language, core services and reducing poverty.
  • The remaining three Well-being Objectives provide an inner focus, targeted at strengthening fundamental issues where the Council must improve to enable it to deliver the services which Pembrokeshire residents deserve.  These are good governance, financial resilience and tackling issues related to our workforce such as recruitment and retention.
  • The Corporate Strategy sets out clearly the contribution each of the Council’s Well-being Objectives will make to deliver the seven national Well-being Goals for Wales, as required under the Well-being of Future Generations Act.
  • The Corporate Strategy is the organisation’s lead document and top of the hierarchy in its ‘golden thread’ of strategies and plans.  All Council activity – at directorate, service, team and individual level – filter down from the direction set out in the Strategy.
  • The Council is committed to reviewing the Strategy and Well-being Objectives on a periodic basis.  In May 2024, a new Leader was appointed by Council and some changes have been made to the Cabinet membership and portfolio areas as a result.  Given this change in Leader of the administration, it is reasonable to expect that the Corporate Strategy and Well-being Objectives will need to be amended to reflect this.
  • The Council has continued to embed its new approach to service planning, shifting from an annual (short term) focus to plans which look over a rolling four year period (medium term), as reported in last year’s report.  The standard templates which all Heads of Service follow continues to be reviewed on an annual basis to ensure that they are as effective as possible in taking opportunities to align service activity with the organisational direction set out in the Corporate Strategy and with our approach to medium term financial planning.  The link between service delivery and financial planning was strengthened in this year’s process as Heads of Service have been asked to put forward proposals to make savings in their service areas in the context of the scale of the financial challenges projected in the Medium Term Finance Plan.
  • Service plans have been completed between January – April 2024 and will be considered and signed-off by the Senior Leadership Team.
  • Last year’s version of this report was approved by Governance and Audit Committee and by Council in the autumn of 2023.  Having reviewed the approach to self-assessment taken by other local authorities and WLGA best practice information sharing sessions, the Council is confident that its approach is robust and fit for purpose.  Our annual self-assessment report is the vehicle through which we meet our statutory duty to report on our progress to deliver our Well-being Objectives.
  • In 2023 it was agreed that the Council’s first Panel Performance Assessment (PPA), a statutory requirement under the Local Government and Elections Act, would take place sometime in the spring of 2025.  The Council will be focused on planning, scoping and co-ordinating this work through autumn 2024 in anticipation for this work.
  • The Council continues to invest in strengthening its arrangements around corporate performance management and monitoring of key measures.  The Corporate Scorecard continues to be developed.  The purpose of this document is to ensure that Members and senior leaders are sighted on key performance measures which provide a broad overview of organisational and corporate health.  As a result the scorecard is subject to reviewed frequently to make sure that the measures reported on provide sufficient coverage across key corporate and service areas.
  • The Scorecard is currently considered routinely by the Senior Leadership team, and reported to Cabinet together with other key management information relating to financial monitoring and risk in an integrated approach.  Some of the key areas of focus over the past 12 months has seen expanding the suite of measures to include greater operational detail for both social care and some of our residents’ services, such as waste and planning.
  • The Scorecard is formally considered in the public domain by Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee.  Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee have also received data extracted from the Scorecard to provide oversight of measures within its specific remit and similarly, Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee has been presented with data relevant to its remit.
  • We have continued to embed the use of Power BI to visual data.  This has involved using the software for the collection and presentation of information rather than using a spreadsheet based approach.  This is a complex piece of work and it is likely that it will take a considerable period of time before the approach is fully embedded.  Nevertheless some of the benefits of using Power BI are already being realised, in particular in regards to the presentation of information, the opportunity to see trends over time, and the ability to use the data in a more interactive way.

 

Evidence – how do we know?

 

Improvement actions – what can we do better and how?

  • Continue to ensure alignment between strategic objectives set out in the Corporate Strategy and the Council’s Medium Term Service Plan.
  • Strengthen monitoring arrangements of the Corporate Strategy through ensuring appropriate measures to evaluate our progress are integrated into the Corporate Scorecard.
  • Undertake an annual review of the Corporate Strategy and Well-being Objectives to ensure that the Council continues to focus on the right things and emerging issues are captured.
  • Continue to embed the discipline of multi-year service planning in the culture of the organisation and forward planning cycle, undertaking an annual review of the service plan guidance and templates to ensure these are fit for purpose.
  • Undertake preparatory and scoping work in readiness for the Council’s first Panel Performance Assessment.
  • Review and amend the Corporate Scorecard to ensure better alignment with the Corporate Strategy and enables Members and senior officers to monitor the delivery of the Strategy in an integrated way.
  • Continue to review the current list of performance measures reported in the Scorecard to ensure it provides sufficient coverage of metrics targeted at organisational challenges and strategic objectives.
  • Continue to roll-out the use of Power BI in the collection and reporting of performance information.

 

SA2.2 - Strategic partnerships

 

Assessment of current performance – how well are we doing?

  • This section provides a broad overview of some of the key partnership arrangements which the Council is involved in.  More detail on some of these partnership arrangements can be found within specific sections of this report.
  • The Council is involved in and supports a number of strategic partnerships both financially and with officer time.  The drivers for these partnerships include legislation, policy directives from Welsh Government, and in realising the benefits of collaborative working through economies of scale and reducing duplication by working with others to deliver shared objectives on a regional basis.
  • The Council has recently reviewed its list of key strategic partnerships and the list has been approved by Cabinet.  The review has taken a proportionate risk based approach focusing on the key partnerships where the Council needs to have assurance that effective governance, internal control, financial management and risk management arrangements are in place.  The Council’s Partnership Procedure has been reviewed and revised by the Senior Leadership Team to support this, and partnership leads across each of the strategic partnerships approved by Cabinet will be asked to ensure governance arrangements are robust and fit for purpose.  The Council’s agreed list of key strategic partnerships are:
    • Swansea Bay City Deal
    • Celtic Freeport
    • SWW Corporate Joint Committee
    • Pembrokeshire Public Services Board (PSB)
    • Safer Pembrokeshire Community Safety Partnership
    • Regional Substance Misuse Area Planning Board
    • Pembrokeshire Nature Partnership
    • Partneriaeth
    • Regional Learning and Skills Partnership
    • Pembrokeshire College
    • West Wales Regional Partnership Board
    • Healthier Pembrokeshire Strategic Partnership Board
    • M&WW Regional Safeguarding Board: Children (CYSUR) & Adults (CWMPAS)
    • M&WW Regional Adoption Service
    • Pembrokeshire Housing Register
  • A selection of broad headlines of activity delivered through some of these strategic partnerships is outlined below:
    • The Council is one of four statutory partners of Pembrokeshire’s Public Services Board (PSB), and as such the Council plays a key leadership role in the work of the partnership.  The PSB is a strategic partnership established under the Well-being of Future Generations Act and is comprised of representatives from key organisations from the public, private and third sectors in the county.  It is chaired by the Council’s Cabinet Member for Corporate Improvement, Communities and Well-being of Future Generations.
    • The PSB is required to publish a Well-being Plan once every five years, setting out its statutory Well-being Objectives and the actions it will take to improve well-being for people and communities in Pembrokeshire.  The most recent Well-being Plan was published in May 2023 and is focused on the delivery of three key work streams:
      • Strengthening Communities
      • Reducing Poverty and Inequalities
      • Realising net zero and decarbonisation, managing climate adaptation and tackling the nature emergency
    • During 2023-24 the PSB has introduced a Gold, Silver and Bronze delivery structure for each of the work streams to ensure work is planned, co-ordinated and targeted in an integrated manner.  The PSB has a ‘spotlight’ session on one of the project areas at each of its meetings on a rotational basis.  Update reports for each of the work streams is also considered at each meeting.  Further information can be found in the evidence section below, particularly in respect of the PSB’s Annual Report.
    • The Corporate Joint Committee (CJC) for South West Wales covering the local authority areas of Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea (and including the two national parks within the region) was formally constituted in January 2022.  CJCs are a requirement under the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act with the purpose of improving regional planning, co-ordination and delivery of transport, land use planning, economic development and energy.  The CJC published its Corporate Plan 2023-2028 during the year establishing its vison for South West Wales 2035.  The CJC has approved a South West Wales Regional Energy Strategy and a South West Wales Regional Economic Delivery Plan, with a South West Wales Regional Transport Plan currently under development.
    • Pembrokeshire is a key partner in the Swansea Bay City Deal along with the other three regional local authorities - Carmarthenshire Council, Swansea Council and Neath Port Talbot Council - together with the Swansea Bay and Hywel Dda University Health Boards, Swansea University, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and private sector partners.  The Deal is an investment package of up to £1.3 billion in a portfolio of major programmes and projects across the region with the expectation that it will boost the regional economy by at least £1.8 billion over the next 15 years, while generating more than 9,000 jobs.  City Deal programmes and projects are based on key themes including economic acceleration, life science and well-being, energy, smart manufacturing and digital.  The major project located in the county is the £60 million Pembroke Dock Marine programme will place Pembrokeshire at the heart of global zero carbon marine energy innovation while also helping tackle climate change.  Pembroke Dock Marine will deliver the facilities, services and spaces needed to establish a world-class centre for marine engineering led by the private sector and supported by the Council.  The full business case has been approved by UK Government and Welsh Government.  The most recent ‘highlight’ report on the progress of projects to date from September 2023 can be found in the evidence section below.
    • The Council is also a key player in the Celtic Freeport private-public consortium which has been approved and will deliver an accelerated pathway for Wales’ net zero economy, generating over 16,000 new, green jobs and up to £5.5 billion of new investment. The transformational project covers the ports of Milford Haven and Port Talbot and spans clean energy developments and innovation assets, fuel terminals, a power station, heavy engineering and the steel industry across south-west Wales.  A new Chief Executive has been appointed during the year which has accelerated the process of developing the business case and seeking approval from UK and Wales governments to move from bid and development phase to delivery.
    • In 2022-23 the Council joined with Carmarthenshire County Council and Swansea Council to form Partneriaeth, a new education consortium which has replaced previous arrangements under ERW.  The purpose of Partneriaeth is to provide greater value for money, transparency, stronger governance on decision-making and higher quality professional learning.
  • Safer Pembrokeshire is the statutory community safety partnership with the purpose of reducing crime and disorder, fear of crime, anti-social behaviour and substance misuse.  The partnership will be focused over the next 12 months on the production of a new strategy which will set out how partners will work together to address these issues moving forward.
  • Overview and scrutiny of the Council’s key strategic partnership arrangements are managed either through bespoke regional scrutiny committees or through the relevant thematic scrutiny committee within the Council’s own arrangements.  The Council also has an established Partnerships Panel which sits under, and reports to, Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee.  The panel is designated with the statutory responsibility to scrutinise the PSB and also has oversight of the Safer Pembrokeshire partnership within its remit.

 

Evidence – how do we know?

 

Improvement actions – what can we do better and how? 

  • Continue to play a key leadership role in all of the Council’s key strategic and regional partnerships.
  • Support the delivery of the PSB’s Well-being Plan for Pembrokeshire.
  • Communicate the revised Partnerships Procedure to the lead officers for each of the respective strategic partnerships, to ensure that there is a clear framework in place to achieve effective governance, internal control, financial management and risk management arrangements.

 

SA2.3 - Consultation and engagement

 

Assessment of current performance – how well are we doing?

  • The Council uses a wide range of consultation and engagement techniques in order to deliver services that meet our customers’ and communities’ needs.  These range from one-off consultation on service specific issues to a continuous programme of engagement and involvement by customers, especially our own housing tenants.
  • Cabinet adopted a Participation Strategy on 9 January 2023.  The strategy aims to encourage public participation in decision-making by the Council itself and the making of decisions in partnership or in conjunction with any other person.  Actions from the Policy and Pre-Decision Overview and Scrutiny Committee in November 2023 resulted in a streamlined action plan to ensure the Council’s efforts in progressing the agenda were focused.  The plan will be reviewed annually by the Policy and Pre-Decision Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Democratic Services Committee to give assurance of progress being made.
  • Some of our most significant public consultations included the: Council Tax Premium Consultation, Budget Consultation; Housing Customer Satisfaction Survey; Strategic Equality Plan 2024-28; and Bus Services Consultation.   Some projects attracted a significant number of responses with over 1600 responses received for the Council Tax Premium Consultation. 
  • In 2023-24, there were 25.6k visits to the consultation “Have Your Say” page of the Council’s website, compared to 18k in 2022-23, an increase of 42%.  When analysed by type of engagement, 21% of people who visited the website were ‘engaged’ (i.e. completed a survey), which is a higher proportion than in 2022-23 when the percentage of those engaged was 10%.  For 2023-24, 51% of visitors were ‘informed’ (e.g. watched a video, looked at a supporting document) an increase from 27% in 2022-23.  28% were ‘aware’ (i.e. visited at least one webpage) compared to 63% in 2022-23.
  • In December 2023, we commenced a review our consultation system and have developed and implemented a new webpage for the Have Your Say site. We have reviewed the demographic questions we ask as part of consultations including the Welsh Language questions.  This will support ongoing monitoring, reporting, and comparison with Census and other statistical information. We have developed consultation guidance including guidance for using the consultation application, Microsoft Forms (Survey, Quiz and Poll application). Forty staff have completed the Microsoft Forms training from across the Council, 18 of which have volunteered to be part of the consultation user group.
  • We have commenced a review of the Integrated Impact Assessment processes (Guidance and Template) and will pilot the revised documentation in Q3 of 2024.  We will utilise guidance provided by the Welsh Language Commissioners Office to support the review of the Welsh Language impact assessment section.
  • We continue to engage through our internal communications such as a weekly round-up of key news stories via “Pembrokeshire Focus”.

 

Evidence - how do we know?

 

Improvement actions – what can we do better and how?

  • Increase participation through improving communication methods is part of the Forward Work Programme of the Democratic Services Committee as part of ongoing Participation Strategy discussions.
  • Development of the new Have Your Say Engagement and Consultation website will include feedback to the public on the consultation outcome and formal decision taken on the policy/proposal under consideration.   This was not previously included on the consultation website.
  • Strengthen on-going methods of consultation and engagement, especially around customer voice and consider how these influence the design of our internal performance management system.

 

SA2.4 - Complaints and compliments 

 

Assessment of current performance - how well are we doing?

  • Complaints and compliments provide vital information for the Council as the interface between the delivery of services and the feedback it receives from residents on the quality and effectiveness of those services.  Complaints help to identify potential shortcomings and are used as a tool to drive improvement, while compliments are always welcomed as a means of recognising where a service or an individual officer has done something particularly well.
  • The Complaints, Concerns and Compliments team have during the period April 2023 to March 2024 helped facilitate 968 complaints (819 in 2022-23) with 98% (96% in 2022-23) of complaints being resolved at Stage 1 (Informal). The remaining 2% (4% in 2022-23) of cases advanced to the formal Stage 2 level which requires an independent review of the complaint.
  • 65% (80% in 2022-23) of the complaints were resolved within the national timescales, with 34% (19% in 2022-23) of the complaints falling outside of this period being extended in agreement with the complaint. The remaining 1% (1% in 2021-22) was completed within 6 months due to the complexity of the complaint.
  • As at end of March 2024, 40 complaints had been referred to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (44 for the same period in 2022-23), with six of these complaints requiring early intervention by the Ombudsman (3 for the same period in 2022-23).  A breakdown of the complaints received by the Ombudsman was presented to the Governance & Audit Committee and Cabinet in November 2023 for consideration.
  • Reports on complaints data have been considered by both Governance and Audit Committee and Cabinet during the 2023-24 financial year.
  • In 2023-24, the Corporate Complaints Team implemented a Service Level Agreement to all Schools in Pembrokeshire to ensure a consistency in complaint handling.  In total 62 out of the 65 Schools in Pembrokeshire signed up to the agreement.
  • The Council likes to understand what we do well and what our customer’s value, with compliments being fed back to the respective services which can strengthen morale.  In 2023-24, the Council received 286 compliments on services provided.  This figure was a decrease on the number of compliments received in 2022-23 (299).
  • Revised both the Compliments, Concerns and Complaints Policy and the Managing Customer Contact Policy, both of which were approved at the April 2024 Cabinet meeting.

 

Evidence – how do we know?

 

Improvement actions – what can we do better and how?

  • Continue to develop the Civica system for complaints to enable that data presented to Directors/Heads of Service is meaningful, and allows trends to be identified and monitored in order to improve services provided by the Council.
  • Benchmarking will be undertaken (where possible) with other authorities to provide assurance that the Council are handling complaints effectively, with an annual report being presented to Cabinet and the Governance & Audit Committee. 
  • Deliver training and guidance to both Corporate and School staff following the revised Compliments, Concerns and Complaints Policy in order to ensure that there is a consistent approach of handling complaints across the Council.
  • Deliver training to Governing Bodies to ensure that the School Complaints Policy is consistently applied across all Schools.

 

SA2.5 - Equalities

 

Assessment of current performance – how well are we doing?

  • The strategic context of our work on equalities is the Equality Act 2010 and associated Welsh Government Regulations for public bodies.  Welsh Government published an Anti-racist Wales Action Plan in 2022 which contains actions for local authorities and in February 2023. Welsh Government also published a LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales whose actions also have implications for councils.  Within Wales, the socio-economic duty within the Equality Act has been commenced and actions to tackle poverty are reported on under the Tackling Poverty well-being objective.
  • A revised Strategic Equality Plan 2024-28 has been implemented with effect from 1st April 2024. Formal consultation was undertaken in the summer 2023 and in 2024.  The draft Plan and Supporting Evidence were scrutinised by the Policy and Pre-Decision Overview and Scrutiny Committee in January 2024.  A formal consultation on the Draft Plan was completed following this. The draft plan was approved by Cabinet in March 2024.
  • The supporting evidence paper of the Strategic Equality Plan 2024-28 contains a range of information on people who share protected characteristics in Pembrokeshire, the region and beyond.  The paper contains evidence from the 2021 Census which, for the first time, has information on sexuality, gender identity as well as providing more recent information on the other protected characteristics.  The Census also allows ‘intersectionality’ (combinations of more than one protected characteristic, such as disability and age) to be explored.
  • During 2023-24, there continued to be some lapses in Integrated Impact Assessment processes, for example, for some assessments there is limited information included for specific areas.  A review of the Corporate Integrated Impact Assessment processes commenced during 2024-25.  Following review, a revised template and guidance will be piloted and tested to ensure that they are practical and simple to use, and meet our duties. Their required use to support formal decision making will be promoted to all staff to remind them of this requirement. 
  • The Council continues to monitor the 2024-2028 Strategic Equality Plan through the Strategic Equality Action Plan group and in May 2024, the membership of the group was expanded to include elected members and tasked with developing an anti-racist action plan in line with an agreed Notice of Motion from Council. 
  • Equality monitoring continues to be undertaken as part of Engagement and Consultation.  See SA3.2 Consultation and Engagement.
  • Throughout 2023-24, we continued to provide practical support to Ukrainian families.  Whilst the numbers being supported increased during 2023-24 from 333 in March 2023 to 436 in April 2024, the numbers of Ukrainians on the scheme actually living in Pembrokeshire as at April 2024 dropped slightly from 237 to 204.  This was mainly due to Ukrainians repatriating or moving out of Pembrokeshire (91 in 2022-23 compared to 209 in 2023-24).  We recruited more than 20 new hosts since July 2023.  Almost 95% of those Ukrainians living in Pembrokeshire are either in hosted accommodation or have secured properties in the private housing rental sector. We worked closely with youth services to fund events and residential trips for younger refugees, helping them settle and forge friendships.   We have built relationships with schools to ensure successful pupil integration. 
  • We continued to provide a number of different ways (or channels) for customers to access services as well as providing information in a range of formats.  For instance customers can pay for Council Tax and rent by cash in Post Offices.  Throughout 2023-24 there was a gradual shift towards digital channels (for instance the number of calls received by our contact centre fell by 9% whereas the average number of users of My Account each month for 2023-24 increased by 10% compared with the previous year.  We have committed to review the contact centre and customer reception areas within 2024-25.
  • The Access Pembrokeshire website (opens in a new tab) which is supported through our Workways project continues to provide information about services and activities for people with disability or learning difficulties.  The project is linked to the Pembrokeshire Supported Employment Programme.  Through these links a video has been made to showcase how accessible voting can be for the disabled public.  The video’s release was timetabled for the run up for the planned Police and Crime Commissioner Elections in May 2024.
  • By working with a range of partners we minimised the impact of budget cuts on public toilets.  2023-24 also saw some significant investment in accessible public toilets with a changing places toilet opened at Whitesands Beach, the first one at a beach-side location allowing those who may otherwise not be able to visit due to lack of facilities to accommodate their needs to enjoy the area.
  • As part of a targeted sports development approach to engage vulnerable pupils and groups at secondary school age, the Active Young People Team have focused provision in five targeted secondary settings.  Additional Learning Needs/Disability sessions have included sessions supported by Sport Pembrokeshire volunteers, and community club visits to raise awareness of opportunities. A secondary school Boccia event was held in November 2023, and a primary school event in February 2024, with 16 schools and 12 schools teams entered. ADisability Swimming Gala was held in February 2024 with 8 schools attending and 35 participants.
  • The Council continues to publish workforce equality data with the report for 2022-23 published in April 2024.  The format of the report for 2022-23 has changed slightly so that it is consistent with other employment data (i.e. based around posts) which make is much easier to produce.  The report provides information on pay for men and women as well as people from different ethnic origins.  In 2023-24 women working in Pembrokeshire County Council earnt 97p for every £1 earnt by men based on median hourly pay – our gender pay gap.  Pembrokeshire County Council’s gender pay gap is much narrower than it was in the past e.g. in 2017-18 women earnt 77p for every £1 earnt by men.
  • We continue to encourage applications to our paid or volunteer roles from across all communities.  The Council is the only local authority in Wales to be a Disability Confident Leader and we have also achieved a Silver award under the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme and are working towards Gold in 2024-25.
  • The Housing section of this plan includes information on how we have engaged with Gypsy and Traveller communities (Pembrokeshire has one of the largest number of Gypsy and Traveller sites of any county in Wales).  In response to unmet need identified by the Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessment, we worked in 2023-24 to identify suitable candidate sites to include in the revised Local Development Plan (which is subject to further consultation).  The culmination of this work were reports to Cabinet in May and July 2024 which considered the merits of five potential sites for inclusion as well as a provision within the Council’s Capital Programme towards any costs.
  • With colleagues who work across the region, we continue to monitor community tensions though the focus of this regional work in 2023-24 was on other counties in Dyfed-Powys rather than Pembrokeshire.

 

Evidence – how do we know?

 

Improvement actions – what can we do better and how?

  • Ongoing monitoring of the revised Strategic Equality Plan 2024 – 2028 including actions around an anti-racist action plan.
  • Implement the revised integrated impact assessment guidance and process.
  • Continue to monitor pay gaps and ensure that our recruitment practices enable the Council’s workforce to reflect the communities it serves.
  • We recognise that there is a need to improve demographic information and will build upon revised standard questions produced as part of our new consultation system.
  • Progress our revised Local Development Plan including sites that can meet the unmet need for Gypsy and Traveller accommodation
  • Work towards a Gold Award from the Defence Employer Recognition scheme.
  • Continue to modernise access to Council service and increase the range of services that can be accessed on-line whilst maintaining other channels for accessing services.
ID: 12318, revised 02/07/2026
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