Performance and Management Indicators – Definitions and Sources
ESS-Performance-and-Management-Indicators-Definitions-and-Sources.pdf
Download pdf (228.53 KB)
This document may not be fully accessible.
Our Performance and Management Indicators – Sources and Definitions
Progress against the following set of Performance and Management Indicators will be reported in ESS’ Annual Report and Accounts.
| Category of Indicator | Indicator | Source of Information for Indicator | Definition | Frequency of reporting |
| Performance Indicators | ||||
| Actions | Number of investigations completed |
ESS case tracker | This indicator will report the number of investigations which are completed during the reporting period. Investigations are defined as those which have been agreed by the ESS Board and formally announced publicly. An investigation is completed when it’s official finding is issued to the organisation(s) under investigation. | Annually |
| Number of analysis projects completed | ESS internal analytical projects tracker | This indicator will report the number of analytical projects undertaken by ESS staff and/or commissioned externally which are completed during the reporting period. A list of projects will be published as part of/alongside the relevant Annual Report.
|
Annually | |
| Number of representations considered | ESS case tracker | This indicator will report the number of representations considered and logged in ESS’ case tracker during the reporting year regardless of outcome. A representation is the description used in ESS’ governing legislation for any instance of concern raised with ESS about how public authorities discharge their environmental law responsibilities or the effectiveness of environmental law. ESS’ annual report will provide more information on the outcomes of those representations considered. Representations subsequently withdrawn will not be counted. | Annually | |
| Outputs | Number of investigations resulting in:
|
ESS case tracker | This indicator will report the number of investigations which are completed during the reporting period according to the outcome. Investigations are defined as those which have been agreed by the ESS Board and formally announced publicly. An investigation is completed when it’s official finding is issued to the organisation(s) under investigation. Compliance Notice, Improvement Report and Judicial Review are as defined in ESS’ governing legislation. Investigations may also be resolved informally and this will also be reported. | Annually |
| Category of Indicator | Indicator | Source of Information for Indicator |
Definition | Format and frequency of reporting |
| Outputs | Number and proportion of issues resolved informally | ESS case tracker | An ESS investigation may be resolved informally (as noted above) but this is also a potential outcome for issues which do not reach formal investigation status. Here, issues refers to cases listed on the ESS case tracker. The indicator will count those which have been informally resolved in the reporting year. Informal resolution means that during the course of investigation, pre-investigation or consideration of a representation, ESS has made recommendations to address the concern which it is satisfied are being implemented without the need for further use of powers and ESS has no outstanding concerns. |
Annually |
| Intermediate Outcomes | Percentage of Compliance Notices implemented in full, on schedule |
ESS case tracker | This indicator will report the percentage of compliance notices which were expected to be implemented in the reporting year and which have been implemented in full, on schedule. Compliance notice is defined as in ESS’ governing legislation. | Annually |
| Percentage of recommendations implemented from Improvement Reports |
ESS case tracker | This indicator will report the percentage of recommendations from improvement reports which were expected to be implemented during the reporting year and which have been implemented on schedule. Improvement reports are as defined in ESS’ governing legislation and each can contain more than one recommendation. | Annually | |
| Percentage of recommendations/actions implemented in full, on schedule from informal resolution | ESS case tracker | This indicator will report the percentage of recommendations / actions from informal resolution which were expected to be implemented during the reporting year and which have been implemented on schedule. Informal resolution means that during the course of investigation, pre-investigation or consideration of a representation, ESS has made recommendations to address the concern which it is satisfied are being implemented without the need for further use of powers and ESS has no outstanding concerns. | Annually | |
| Long-term Outcome | ESS’ assessment of Scotland’s progress against environmental indicators | To be determined | This indicator will consider how ESS has contributed to delivering improvements in selected environmental outcomes where it has undertaken scrutiny work. This will involve formulating theories of change, identifying specific indicators to monitor changes in outcomes at a high level and undertaking light touch impact assessments (once every three years) of how ESS’ work has contributed (directly or indirectly) to changes. | Every two to three years |
| Category of Indicator | Indicator | Source of Information for Indicator | Definition | Format and frequency of reporting |
| Management Indicators | ||||
| Engaging & Communicating Effectively About Our Role and How to Raise Concerns | Number attending public/stakeholder engagement sessions | Eventbrite and Microsoft Teams reports. | This indicator will report the total number of attendees across all registered public/stakeholder events and workshops hosted by ESS during the reporting period. Eventbrite and Microsoft Teams will be used to generate a report to provide the total number of attendees. Other event organisers will be asked to send information to the CSC team to be collated in a table. | Annually |
| Percentage of feedback positive from public/stakeholder engagement sessions | Analysis of Microsoft Forms / Smartsheet surveys issued to all attendees after each public/stakeholder event. | This indicator will report the percentage of positive feedback received following participant surveys of attendees at registered public/stakeholder events and workshops hosted by ESS during the reporting period. Positive feedback is defined as a score of three or above out of five for overall satisfaction. | Annually | |
| Number of citations in parliamentary reports or meetings | ESS search of Scottish Parliament Official Reports (Official Report: search what was said in Parliament | Scottish Parliament Website) for the term “Environmental Standards Scotland”. |
This indicator will report the number of agenda items in Scottish Parliament Official Reports in which Environmental Standards Scotland is cited in the reporting period. Official Reports are the written record of public meetings of the Parliament and its Committees. An agenda item can only be counted once, regardless of how many times ESS is cited in that section. However, a report may count more than once if ESS is cited under more than one agenda item covered by the report. | Annually | |
| Number of social media followers |
Twitter and LinkedIn | This indicator will report the total number of followers on LinkedIn and Twitter at the time of reporting. | Annually | |
| Number of new and return visits to ESS website | Website analytics | This indicator will report the total number of new and return visits to ESS website in reporting period. | Annually | |
| Category of Indicator | Indicator | Source of Information for Indicator | Definition | Format and frequency of reporting |
| Engaging & Communicating Effectively About Our Role and How to Raise Concerns | Stakeholder perception of ESS role | Survey of ESS stakeholders. | ESS will issue a survey to stakeholders every 2-3 years to gather views on the perception of ESS’ role and the results will be summarised in the relevant annual report. | Every two to three years |
| An Efficient and Effective Organisation | Service standards met | Case tracker, correspondence tracker, FOI tracker, SEAS reports, website accessibility audit. | This indicator will report a summary of ESS’ performance against its service standards and further explanatory narrative will be presented in our annual report. Where the standard has a numeric target, ESS will be deemed to have met the standard if it has achieved the target at least 95% of the time. Some standards will be monitored via sampling. For example, to check whether investigations officers are keeping correspondents regularly updated, we will randomly sample the case files of 10% (or a minimum of 10) representations considered. | Annually |
| Percentage of corporate reporting requirements delivered to schedule | ESS corporate reporting summary table. | This indicator will report the total number of corporate reporting requirement deadlines met*100 divided by the total number of corporate reporting requirements during the reporting period. | Annually | |
| Number of complaints received | ESS tracking of service complaints. | This indicator reports the total number of official complaints received within reporting period. All teams within ESS must report complaints to the CSC team for tracking. | Annually | |
| Board and staff diversity information | ESS corporate reporting. | This indicator will form part of our corporate reporting requirements (Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties)(Scotland) Regulations 2012 and Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018). The results will be made available on the ESS website and included in the annual report. We will only be able to publish the data where we have the minimum number for statistically viable and appropriate data. | Annually | |
| An Efficient and Effective Organisation | Staff engagement | Smartsheet survey with staff engagement index. | We will run an annual staff survey of permanent and fixed-term contract employees to gather views on their engagement with ESS. The methodology for producing the engagement index will be as set out in the technical guide for the Civil Service People Survey: Civil Service People Survey 2021: technical guide – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) | Annually |
| Organisational carbon emissions (tonnes of CO2 equivalent) | Reports (sustainablescotlandnetwork.org) | This indicator will form part of our corporate reporting requirements under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, where we will report against our Sustainability Plan to reach Net Zero. | Annually |