Building standards - annual verification performance report 2020 to 2021

6. Performance Trends

6.1 Professional expertise and technical processes

KPO1 - Minimise time taken to issue a first report or to issue a building warrant or amendment to building warrant

The performance for issuing a first report (KPO1.1) and building warrant or amendment to warrant (KPO1.2) has steadily improved over 2020-21, (see Chart 1).

KPO2 - Increase quality of compliance assessment during the construction processes

There are currently no performance targets set for KPO2 and a wider review is currently underway.

6.2 Quality customer experience

KPO3 - Commit to the building standards customer charter

All 32 verifiers have implemented and published the Building Standards National Customer Charter (KPO3.1). This is supplemented with their own local charter.

Verifiers have made improvements to the quality and consistency of information published on their websites which promotes better communication for building standards customers. Verifier response times (KPO3.2) to requests for information for customers reporting performance concerns to Scottish Government have been met within the 5 day target, (see Chart 2).

KPO4 - Understand and respond to the customer experience

The National Customer Satisfaction Survey of Building Standards customers is conducted annually by an impartial third party on behalf of Scottish Government. The overall National Customer Satisfaction rating for Scotland (KPO4) has increased year on year. The national target of 7.5 was met in 2020, (see Chart 3).

6.3 Operational and financial efficiency

KPO5 - Maintain financial governance

Overall fee income has reduced by 9% compared to average levels during 2019-20. This is largely due to less construction activity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this, verifiers have maintained the level of investment in staffing and continue to show a gradual improvement in overall investment levels into their building standards service, (see Chart 4).

Chart 4: KPO5 - Maintain financial governance

KPO6 - Commit to eBuilding Standards

The move towards digital verification services has been supported by Scottish Government's eBuildingStandards platform used by all 32 local authority verifiers (KPO6.1). The number of electronic applications has continued to rise year on year since the platform was launched in 2016. All Building Standards customers can submit electronic documents and payments directly to local authorities and the system facilitates continuous improvement toward fully digitised end to end electronic processes (KPO6.2), covering the whole customer journey (see Chart 5).

KPO7 - Commit to objectives outlined in the annual verification performance report

The Annual Verification Performance Reports are a strategic planning and management tool to link performance reporting to continuous improvement actions. All 32 verifiers have implemented and published their reports (KPO7.1) on their own local authority website:

Annual Verification Performance Reports
(https://www.labss.org/publications/local-authority-performance-report/la-performance-links)

The report includes information on their vision for the service, strategy and performance data (KPO7.2), (see Chart 6).