1. Portfolio/Number/Name:J/C2 Community Justice Services |
2. Programme/Activity: Please
include a short description Delivery of offender services,
specifically criminal justice social work.
The service is responsible for delivery of
reports to courts (Social Enquiry Reports),
community disposals, and statutory and
voluntary throughcare to ex-prisoners on
release from custody. |
3. Planned Savings | | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 |
Cash (m) | 0 | 4 | 4 |
Time Releasing (m) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
4. Accountable Officer for
delivery | Robert Gordon |
5. Project Manager | Brian Cole |
6. EGDG account manager | Carolyn Girvan |
7. Quality Impact | Describe any impact on the quality
of service delivery. Be specific and
explain if the expectation is positive,
negative or neutral. Impossible to determine at this stage.
Will in part be an outcome of the volume of
services to be delivered, which is very
much in the hands of the courts and
therefore outwith the control of local
authorities. Volume of court orders and
reports in recent years has increased year
on year and this is expected to be a
continuing trend, although should the
service become overstretched with
consequences for quality of service
delivery, courts could decide to impose
fewer numbers of orders. |
8. Dependencies | Explain if your savings are
dependant on legislation or other
structural changes being achieved. Efficiencies will require to be
achieved through local authorities
delivering services at lower cost than
might otherwise have been the case. |
9. Description of efficiency and
actions to be taken | 9.1 How will the saving be made? Be
specific about number/size of contracts,
staff, posts dates etc. Will lie with individual local
authorities and with relevant criminal
justice social work groupings. The vast
majority of spend is in relation to staff
costs, where efficiency savings will need
to be found. Specific measures could, for
example, include assessment of the scope
for greater use, subject to compliance with
National Standards, of non-qualified as
opposed to qualified staff undertaking
certain tasks. At a national level, a
working group (due to report in Spring
2005) is currently reviewing the
opportunities for reducing the current
level of activity devoted to preparation of
reports for courts. The annual planning
process will provide the opportunity to
identify weaker performing programmes. This
would allow scope for resources to be
directed into more effective
programmes. |
9.2 What action is critically
needed to secure delivery of this saving?
Be specific, and name the key action
managers if they are outwith your immediate
management chain (e.g. in an
NDPB.) Local authorities will require to take
specific actions by March 2006 to ensure
that they will be able to live within
future funding allocations. |
10. Impact on Staffing to achieve the efficiency
gain | If there are to be any changes in
staff numbers (at activity level) to
achieve the efficiency gain, please
indicate how many full time equivalents and
how far you expect savings to be achieved
by natural wastage (show additions as + and
reductions as -). Impossible to indicate. |
11. Benefits | In general, the benefits of the
Scottish Executive Efficiency Plan are the
enhanced outputs from the resources
Ministers have been able to allocate in
SR04. But if there is a direct connection
between this efficiency saving and the
enhancement of a particular service please
describe it here. N/A |
12. Gross/Net Cash Savings | 12.1 Please set out the gross
recurring saving and any offsetting
recurring expenditure. 2005-06 0m
2006-07 4m
2007-08 4m |
12.2 Against what budget does this
expenditure and saving fall? Justice Department - Offender
Services |
12.3 Has this saving been built into your
budget? Yes |
12.4 If so, what is the maximum
allowable expenditure against the budget
data, in each year, for that saving to be
delivered? Baseline for offender services
for: 2005-06 - 87.18m
2006-07 - 95.18m
2007-08 - 97.18m |
12.5 If not, how do you propose to invest
the additional cash back into public
services? No surplus cash will be generated. |
12.6 What plans do you have to exceed the
required saving? Explain by how much in each
year. No such plans. |
13. Time - release savings | 13.1 Please explain any time-releasing
savings indicated at question 3. N/A |
13.2 Please describe the method you plan to
use to calculate the cash equivalent of those
time release savings. N/A |
14. Measurement and
Monitoring | 14.1 How are you proposing to measure the
expected efficiency benefits (e.g. in terms of
costs, level of output or quality of
service)? Data on a range of output measures
including workload and performance against
a range of statutory performance indicators
is collected routinely. Quality of service
delivery is monitored by Social Work
Inspection Authority through a programme of
inspections of criminal justice social
work. |
14.2 What monitoring & reporting
procedures will be put in place to measure the
efficiency savings (How often will progress
towards the target be monitored? Who will have
lead responsibility for reporting progress and
what procedures will be in place?) As indicated, it will be possible to
measure delivery from a quantitative
perspective in terms of output data, which
is published annually approximately 9
months after completion of the financial
year. The lead for this statistical
exercise lies with the Justice Statistics
Unit. Performance of criminal justice
social work against key statutory
performance indicators is published
annually by Audit Scotland. Authorities
require to prepare audited financial
statements of their spend on criminal
justice social work services. Policy
responsibility for oversight of financial
statements lies with Community Justice
Services Division/Audit Scotland. |
14.3 Monitoring Data: Sources, Validation
and risks - What data will be used to
measure progress? Is all the required
information quantifiable and readily
available? If not what action will be
taken to rectify this?
- What measures will be in place
to validate the accuracy of the data.
Who will take responsibility for this?
- Are there any issues or risks
relating to how you plan to use the data?
(e.g. accuracy, difficulties in
collection)
See 14.2 above.
Annual output data. There are
established methods for the collection of
this data. Professional statisticians are
responsible for verifying the accuracy of
the data.
Risks. In an era of constrained
financial resources, authorities could
attach lower priority to data collection
with consequent monitoring difficulties.
Existing practice is for workload data to
be made available in the form of an annual
statistical bulletin. Audit Scotland issue
annual performance data.
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