Continuous Improvement

Background

Our continuous improvement journey was articulated in 2005 with the establishment of the ‘Improving the Agency’ programme which has two primary activities:

• Learning from Experience – a cross cutting activity designed to improve our evidence base through the systematic use of evaluation

• Single Improved Corporate Culture – covering six workstreams:
- Vision and Values
- Customer Service
- Project Working
- Business Process Review
- Investors in Excellence
- Individual Performance Review

A baseline was developed in 2005 from the qualitative and quantitative evidence gathered through:

• A staff survey
• A stakeholder survey
• Investors in Excellence Beta+ assessments against the externally recognised EFQM criteria

A rolling Continuous Improvement Strategy and key Organisational Development workstreams maintain support for our continuous improvement action plans and activities. This strategy ensures collaboration and coordination between our functional strategies and action plans.

Continuous Improvement Strategy

Our Continuous Improvement Strategy was developed as part of the second Organisation Development programme to identify, prioritise, monitor and report progress towards our vision ‘to be the best economic regeneration agency in the UK’. We have concentrated on a series of organisational and process indicators to demonstrate progress towards this vision, namely:

Our values are explicit in everything we do and embedded in all staff actions. We will demonstrate our:

Aspiration to be the best – the drive to continuously improve in all our actions and activities.

Commitment and responsibility – for all our actions and decisions.

Pride and respect – in doing a job well for ourselves, our colleagues, our stakeholders and the region.

Openness and honesty – transparency, consideration and fairness of our decisions and communications.

·  A systematic strategic planning approach that identifies priorities and is deployed to drive actions consistently throughout the Agency.

·  Effective mechanisms in place to provide leadership on behalf of the region, working closely with partners,  and influence government.

·  Well-managed, optimised resources that are supported by quality decision making

·  Effective processes, systems and infrastructure which support the Agency’s business and values.

·  An effective economic intelligence base and analytical capacity which underpins our policies, priorities and investment decisions.

·  Appropriate measures and targets in place to monitor, manage and evaluate our operations and outcomes.

·  A well managed extended enterprise that supports delivery of the Corporate Plan and in turn the RES and Regional Strategy.

Organisation Development Priority Work Streams can be seen in the diagram below.

Supporting Documents and Downloads

Continuous Improvement Strategy [pdf] (134 KB)

Continuous Improvement Strategy Action Plan [pdf] (64 KB)

Organisation Development Structure Phase 2 [pdf] (317 KB)

Key Results [pdf] (21 KB)