LINKING OUTCOMES TO LEVELS OF SERVICE

March 2021

Waikato District Council

Key economic drivers: » Dairy; Mining; Aggregates; Education; Freight and logistic industries; Adventure tourism and events.

Population: » 82,900 (2020 forecast)

Context » The Waikato district covers more

than 400,000 hectares and sits within the area bounded by Auckland,

Hamilton, and Tauranga.

» This strategic location means the district benefits from the economic and population growth of

these cities, however with these benefits comes the increased need to invest in supporting infrastructure and services.

» The District includes a large number of urban centres connected by a vast transport system with many rural roads. This mix of urban and rural can be challenging to develop a framework that supports clear decision making at all levels.

POKENO

HUNTLY

RAGLAN

NGARUAWAHIA

TE KAUWHATA

Delivering a clear line of sight from Community Outcomes to Levels (and Cost) of Service

The Council has developed a clear and structured way to discuss and agree the organisation’s levels of service (and performance measures) including how these will drive and deliver on the Council’s community outcomes and aspirations. The Council has leveraged the One Network Framework approach to provide a common level of service framework across all Council infrastructure activities.

Our Vision: “Liveable, Thriving, Connected Communities”

The entire framework was developed with Council’s elected members. The Council team took time to step elected members through each part of the framework, and at each point, sought feedback and direction.Examples of how this was achieved included:

» Taking appropriate time, with supporting expertise and resourcing, to step elected members through each step of the framework so they could understand the different elements and inter-relationships as well as how that then translated into decision making and desired results.

» Identifying and developing the organisation’s levels of service into three specific categories - Strategic, Tactical and Operational, to provide a more comprehensive set of levels of service including clear connection between outcomes, levels of service and cost.

» Elected members ranked the levels of service areas within each of the asset families to give the project team clear guidance on what was important to the District’s communities.

» Developed online access to the draft framework and programme so that elected members could be hands on and better understand what it was and what it helped deliver.

» Developed scenarios that showed different levels of service and what this will look and feel like to the community.

» Had clear risk based conversations for each scenario to support elected members to better understand the pros and cons of each including cost implications.

Supporting Elected Member buy in and decision making

» The majority of Council measures were technical, asset based and low level. There were limited measures looking at the bigger (strategic) picture.

» This resulted in levels of service that did not support clear and easy to understand decision making or drive the right behaviours the Council were looking for.

» There wasn’t a clear line of sight between the community outcomes the Council were striving to achieve and the performance measures from which we could gauge successful delivery.

» We needed a clear and succinct way to discuss levels of service and what this meant for Councils planning and investment decision making.

Why we developed a new Framework

Aligning our Community OutcomesThe Council has developed a clear framework outlining the relationship and line of sight between the Councils community outcomes, delivery of core activities, level of service, performance measures, costs of service and risk.

Activity Based OutcomesEach core Activity has developed a set of activity specific outcomes to further define what the Council seeks to achieve for the community. The Activity based outcomes are aligned to the overall Council vision and Community Outcomes. The activities include Transport, Three Waters, Solid Waste, Libraries, Property and Open Spaces.

One Network Framework ApplicationThe Council transport team classified their roading network using the One Network Framework including identifying the Place and Movement Street Categories.

They also identified, using their agreed growth projections, the future growth impacts and relevant triggers that could mean a move to another classification.

The Council used workshops with expert staff as well as the agreed growth projections to develop this work.

Strategic Alignment - National / Regional / LocalThe Council developed a clear framework outlining the relationship and line of sight between national - regional - local outcomes, Council core activities and levels of service.

This helped give confidence to the elected members and investors that the Council was delivering on government expectations, how this aligned to the Councils community outcomes, and the supporting levels of service and performance measures to guide and monitor success.

Levels of Service CategoriesTo support clarity, and a focused and consistent approach across activities, Council structured their levels of service into three categories:

1. Strategic - Big Picture - Long Term Focus

• what we need in the future, guides new major investment.

2. Tactical – Medium - Long Term Focus

• How are we looking after what we got i.e. the condition, guides renewals and/or minor improvements.

3. Operational – Short term - Immediate Focus

• Maintenance and operations, guides business as usual, contract requirements and delivery.

The Council focuses its decision making primarily on Strategic and Tactical Levels of Service.

Operational Levels of Service are delivered through contract KPIs.

Developing the Framework: From Outcomes to Levels of Service

Service Level StatementsService Level Statements were developed for each level of service to support elected members understanding and clarity on what the customer would get.

We worked with elected members to agree the appropriate level of service for each asset.

This approach is supported by an online programme that shows visual representation of each service level including cost and risk profiles.

Level of Service - Cost - Risk’ Relationship The framework is designed to show the critical relationship between levels of service, associated costs and resulting risks. This means that when working with elected members, there was a clear conversation at all times about the impacts of their direction and decision making in terms of what the community would get, how much this would cost and the resulting pros and cons.

Risk Based Assessment of each Asset GroupA risk based assessment was undertaken for each asset group within each corridor i.e. road surface, footpaths, signage, bins and stormwater channels.

The assessment defined the condition of each asset group within that corridor i.e. excellent - good - average - poor - very poor.

This assessment is then linked to the levels of service in terms of what good looks like, how the assets are currently performing, where the relevant risk areas are, options to address and relevant costs.

ScenariosScenarios were developed to support direction on the ‘package’ of levels of service Council could invest in, to address the identified level of service gaps.

The scenarios outlined different levels of service, what the customer would actually see and the resulting costs and risks associated with each.

Visualisation ToolAn interactive visualisation tool was developed to support a ‘one stop shop’ for all asset and levels of service information.

This programme is a great tool to allow elected members to get ‘hands on’ and better understand the different scenarios and subsequent community impacts (pros and cons) of their decision making.

DeliveryThe Council has adopted a collaborative contracting model which brings together Council staff and the main contractor into one team ‘Alliance’.

The Alliance delivers on Councils contract performance framework primarily focused on the tactical and technical levels of service, that has a clear line of sight back to Councils Long Term Plan and outcomes framework.

Service level Grade A

Lifeline routes and their catchment roads will remain open in a 1:100 year flood event

Resilient Network

Service level Grade B

Lifeline routes will remain open in a 1:100 year flood event

Service level Grade C

No routes will remain open in a 1:100 year flood event

Support strong governance and decision making to achieve community and Council aspirations

The ONF provides a nationally recognised approach that elected members can use to translate how they

could address their own District’s challenges and deliver on their community aspirations.

Ensure equitable customer outcomes and investor confidenceThe ONF sets a consistent classification with standards and guidelines for the construction, operation, and maintenance of

roads. This has increased confidence in the Council’s management of their networks including through contractual performance indicators and subsequent costs of service delivery.

Support clear business strategy to meet objectives and lead organisational performance

The ONF gives our management team a clear line of sight to what government is looking to invest in through the Districts transport

activities. This has helped guide our organisational strategy, community outcomes delivery and Long Term Planning processes.

Optimise Journey ExperiencesThe ONF Place and Movement Street Categories have

helped the Council to further classify the function and characteristics of different corridors including the

customer journey experiences. The Council has then agreed the appropriate levels of service to deliver the identified function of each

corridor within the District’s transport system.

to read the Waikato

RCA report

For more information contact Ross Bayer, Roading Team Leader on ross.bayer@waidc.govt.nz

Delivering on the One Network Framework Objectives

Elected Members

Council Management Team

Investment Advisor / Financial Manager

Journey Manager / Network Manager

Click Here

‘Watch this space as we continue to work

with our community, stakeholders and

partners on our One Network journey …’