We have a number of services based in different buildings spread throughout the district and it’s very difficult without a formal system to manage and monitor performance on a consistent basis across the organisation.

When we were inspected by the Audit Commission in 2004, one of the key messages that came out was that if the council was to improve significantly it needed to get a handle on managing its performance.

We needed a system to help us to do that. Escendency was a local, relatively new company which had a different approach to performance management systems, one that was focused on trying to link a person’s individual performance with those of the organisation and to make that performance information very clear and transparent to everyone. Rather than being a piece of software that’s managed within the organisation, Escendency is web-based, which means in theory everyone can access it.

There is an agenda going through both central and local government that is about making public sector organisations accountable and transparent in the decisions they make and what they do with the public money that’s given to them. Clearly, a web-based reporting of performance allows for that transparency and accountability because it means anybody can access it.

By April 2007, we would want all of our services to be reporting their performance through Escendency. There’s a demand for Escendency from both our staff and our councillors, who want us to have a system rolled out across the whole organisation as quickly as possible.

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