Agenda item

Performance Management - Quarter 3 2015/16

Meeting of Overview and Scrutiny, Tuesday, 23 February 2016 4:30 pm (Item 82.)

To review and scrutinise the performance management information and, where appropriate, to require response or action from the Executive Committee.

Minutes:

82.1 The report of the Corporate Services Group Manager, circulated at Pages No. 21-77, attached performance management information for quarter 3 of 2015/16. The Overview and Scrutiny Committee was asked to review and scrutinise performance information and, where appropriate, identify any issues to refer to the Executive Committee for clarification or further action to be taken.

82.2 The performance management report comprised the Council Plan Performance Tracker, the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) set, the Revenue Budget Summary Statement, the Capital Monitoring Statement and the Reserves Position Summary. With regard to the Performance Tracker, attached at Appendix 1 to the report, Members were informed that the majority of actions were progressing well and Paragraph 2.3 of the report highlighted a number of achievements since the last update including: the approval of an Asset Management Strategy by the Executive Committee in November 2015; completion of the Planning and Environmental Health service review; launch of the new Tewkesbury tourism website using the Government’s flood support grant money; and the Executive Committee’s approval of the borough-wide roll out of the place approach following its success in the east area. A Member sought clarification as to what was meant by LEADER and the Economic and Community Development Manager advised that this was a Defra funded project to encourage growth in rural areas and the scheme that had been launched in Tewkesbury Borough and the Forest of Dean had been awarded £1.4M of funding to put towards the generation of jobs in the area. Organisations and businesses could submit applications setting out how they intended to generate growth which would then be assessed and money potentially awarded. It was noted that LEADER itself was an acronym for a French term which was the reason it had not been written in full in the Committee report. A Member went on to question whether the Tewkesbury tourism website was borough-wide and was informed that it had been established in response to flood affected businesses within Tewkesbury town centre and along the river and therefore did not cover the whole borough. It was a specific piece of work and the grant allocated had been based on the number of businesses in the affected areas. The Communications and Policy Manager went on to advise that some of the actions were not progressing as smoothly or as quickly as envisaged. Those actions were highlighted at Page No. 24, Paragraph 2.4 of the report and included Council Tax setting; development of a new workforce strategy; and street cleansing.

82.3 Members raised the following queries in respect of the Performance Tracker:

Priority: Use Resources Effectively and Efficiently
P31 – Objective 2 – Action a) Rationalise office accommodation through new ways of working and to increase rental income – A Member questioned why it was taking such a long time to rent out the office space which was available within the Public Services Centre.	The Deputy Chief Executive explained that negotiations were ongoing with a group of partners but they were confidential at this stage. Ideally the space would be occupied by public service partners in order to grow the public service hub for Tewkesbury Borough. In terms of timescales, there were some set milestones but these were dependent on the other organisations and their consultation processes. Other factors also needed to be taken into consideration, for instance, if the expansion of One Legal went ahead the additional staff would need to be accommodated within the building. It was anticipated that a clearer steer would be gained over the next couple of months and Members would be kept informed as things progressed.
Priority: Promote Economic Development
P37 – Objective 3 – Action a) Work with the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to initiate projects identified in the Strategic Economic Plan and the Structural and Investment Fund Strategy – A Member sought clarification regarding the update on environment and resources efficiency.	The Economic and Community Development Manager explained that the LEP had been awarded European funding and there were now opportunities for organisations to bid for projects of an environmental nature.
Priority: Improve Recycling and Care for the Environment
P43-44 – Objectives In respect of enviro-crimes – A Member raised concern that reports of enviro-crimes, particularly fly-tipping, seemed to be increasing and she questioned whether there was a need for the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Review Working Group to be resurrected.	The Environmental and Housing Services Group Manager advised that fly-tipping had been raised as an issue at the Joint Waste Committee and she explained that it was a national problem. Work had been carried out over the previous summer with one particular Officer and they had now been brought back to do a pilot scheme on work around fly-tipping. It was hoped that this would generate information to help to make a decision as to whether additional resources were required to tackle the problem.

82.4 Attention was drawn to the KPIs, attached in full at Appendix 2 to the report, and Members were informed that the status of each indicator was set out at Paragraph 3.2 of the report. Key areas of interest included KPI 4 and 5 which demonstrated that overall crime was increasing; KPIs 12-14 which related to planning processing times and confirmed that all three targets were unlikely to be achieved by the end of the year and that processing times were down compared to the previous year; and KPI 30 which estimated that 205 new affordable homes would be delivered by the end of the year, the largest number delivered since 2007/08.

82.5 During the debate which ensued, Members raised the following queries in relation to the KPIs:

P65-66 – KPI No’s. 12-14 – Planning processing times – A Member noted that the planning systems review was now complete but he had not seen any changes to the service provided, particularly in respect of communications and customer care, and he questioned when Members would be presented with the review report.

The Deputy Chief Executive clarified that the systems review had been led by the Planning team itself with external support from ICE Creates which had helped to capture the data and identify where improvements could be made. Whilst that part of the project was complete, changes to the way work was carried out within the department would be ongoing, as they had been within Revenues and Benefits which had just recorded its best ever performance in terms of housing benefit applications a year after the systems review had finished. It was important to recognise that the number of planning applications being received was at a record high which inevitably had an impact upon the performance figures, however, Officers had been making improvements and would continue to do so. One of the interesting things which had been identified in both Planning and Environmental Health was the amount of time Officers spent ‘feeding’ a computer system. This was not unusual in old, inefficient systems and part of the second phase would be to reduce reliance upon the computer system to allow Officers to spend more time dealing directly with customers. The review report itself would be presented to the Transform Working Group at its meeting the following day but it could also be brought to a future meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee if Members so wished.

The Communications and Policy Manager indicated that the introduction of the Customer Care Strategy, which included Customer Care Standards for communicating with customers, would help to address the concerns around answering telephone calls etc. This would be discussed in more detail under the next Agenda Item.

82.6 The Financial Budget Summary for quarter 3 showed a saving of £276,131 against the budgeted profile. Page No. 26, Paragraph 4.2, set out the summary of the Council’s position split into the main types of expenditure. It was noted that £123,000 savings had been made in relation to employees which had been achieved through vacant posts and staff absences such as maternity leave. Furthermore, £786,000 additional income had been generated above budget projection; this was predominately from planning applications but also from garden and trade waste and the revised car parking tariff. Whilst treasury management was performing well against target, it continued to show an under-recovery against budget and was still impacted by the limited available cash balances as a result of the Virgin Media refund. Also detailed under corporate budgets was the retained income from the business rates scheme. This was showing a deficit of £350,000 against the quarter 3 budgeted position due to a series of revaluations on various properties within the borough and the write-off of several debts which had proven to be unrecoverable. A summary position for each Group Manager was set out at Appendix 3 to the report.

82.7 The capital budget position for quarter 3 was set out at Appendix 4 to the report and was currently showing an underspend against the profiled budget which was principally due to the capital asset fund of £1.9M that had not been spent in quarter 3 as predicted. The leisure centre was progressing more quickly than had been anticipated but remained within budget. Appendix 5 contained a summary of the current usage of available reserves.

82.8 It was

RESOLVED 1. That the performance management information for quarter 3 2015/16 be NOTED.

2. That a presentation on the Planning systems review be brought to a future meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Supporting documents: