Best Value Notice - Data requests - South Cambs District Council

A Best Value Notice [PDF, 0.8MB] was issued to the Council on 3 November 2023 for a period of six months. This Notice requested that the Council end the four-day week trial, or commit to ongoing weekly submission of performance data with a one-week response period, and for retrospective data for the previous five years (with a one month response period). Councilors voted to comply with the data request at an extraordinary meeting on 20 November 2023.

The Council received a second Best Value Notice [PDF, 0.1MB] [PDF, 0.1MB] from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on Wednesday 8 May 2024. This extended the Notice for a further six months.

On Friday 8 November 2024, the Government's Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote to the Council [PDF, 0.1MB] to say that the Best Value Notice had expired and would not be reissued.

Data provided during the Best Value process

During the period of the Best Value Notice, data requests were made via the Government's online portal, called DELTA. The Council input data into the portal to be submitted. Data included figures, uploaded files and notes.

After considering five sets of weekly data and the retrospective data, Local Government Minster at the time, Simon Hoare MP, decided to expand the initial data request and revise some previous questions. Government issued notice of this request on 29 December 2023; this added new data sets and replaced some previously requested data. This applied to weekly data (requested back to week one and applicable to future weeks) and to retrospective data. The request had a two-week deadline.

All available data has been provided. Explanations have been given where data does not exist or cannot be extracted. Where data could not for technical reasons be provided weekly and could be provided monthly, that data was submitted as soon as possible.

As part of the Council’s commitment to reporting on our progress, the data submitted to DLUHC has been published here. Please read our explanatory notes [XLSX, 22Kb], about the data first as it will help to provide useful context.

Timeline of data requests and submissions	-
Best Value notice issued	3/11/23
Data request outline received	8/11/23
Data request confirmed and live online	13/11/23
Deadline for first weekly data submission	20/11/23
Deadline for retrospective data submission	11/12/23
Expanded and revised weekly and retrospective data request received	29/12/23
Deadline for expanded and revised data request	15/01/24
Launch of SCDC online publication of data	22/01/24
Deadline for additional retrospective data submission	10/06/2024
Further weekly data submission	Weekly each Monday
Further publication of data	Weekly after submission

8 November 2024 letter from MHCLG to SCDC [PDF, 0.1MB]

Historical data request

Weekly data requests

Weeks 1-9

Weeks 30-39

Weeks 40-49

Weeks 20-29

Weeks 10-19

Questions and answers

Why have you provided the data in this format?

We are providing the data in the format it has been supplied to Government as it is efficient to do so – this is the only version of this particular data set as it does not exist for any other purpose.

Why is some data missing?

There are different reasons why we may not be able to provide data. In some cases, data never existed, in others it was not a data set we recorded, it is no longer held before a certain date, or it can no longer be accessed (in older IT systems). We give reasons for this in the data submissions and in the explanation of data [XLSX, 24Kb] [XLSX&WDORIGIN=BROWSELINK, 0Kb].

What does this data show?

This data is not analysed. This data was simply made available to Government at their request.