Agenda item

Priority: Finance and Resources

Page No. 37 – Objective 4 – Action a) Implement and deliver a project plan for closure of the trade waste service – A Member asked why closing down the final accounts had taken longer than expected.

The Head of Service: Waste and Recycling advised there were around 50 businesses who owed money to the authority and approximately 25 which the Council owed money to so Officers were working through that process.  In terms of the bins collected, these were originally due to be disposed of; however, through partnership working with Ubico it had been possible to sell some to Cheltenham Borough Council which was why that element had taken longer than anticipated.

A Member asked whether all community centres now knew where they stood in terms of their entitlement to a free waste collection service and the Head of Service: Waste and Recycling confirmed that was the case.

Key performance indicators for priority: Economic Growth

Pages No. 42 - KPI 1 – Employment rate for 16-24 year olds – A Member questioned whether there was a particular issue with youth unemployment in the borough.

The Head of Service: Community and Economic Development advised that young people had been affected through COVID and the number in education had fallen which impacted on their ability to get jobs and start careers.  Work on the new Economic Development and Tourism Strategy included looking at barriers to unemployment for all groups, particularly young people, and what could be done to address them.

Page No. 43 – KPIs 3 and 4 – Number of business births and deaths – A Member noted that both births and deaths were decreasing and she asked what was causing this.

The Head of Service: Community and Economic Development advised that these were clear trends across Gloucestershire and nationally and Officers were looking into the reasons.

The Director: Corporate Resources advised that KPIs 1-4 were contextual indicators which had been requested by the previous administration to establish how these were changing over time; the time to challenge would be when the Economic Development and Tourism Strategy came forward in June.

Priority: Housing and Communities

Page No. 48 – Objective 3 – Action a) Work with partners, infrastructure providers and developers to progress the delivery of key sites – A Member raised concern it was unclear from the commentary whether the Council was supporting infrastructure and facilities delivery and therefore delivering against this objective.  He also asked how the dwellings being built were helping to address Tewkesbury Borough Council’s housing land supply target.

The Associate Director: Planning indicated these were two separate issues.  The commentary was setting out the progress of the sites through the planning process as opposed to what infrastructure or facilities had been agreed or secured as part of them.

In terms of the housing land supply calculation, this would include some, if not all, of these sites; however, it would probably not be picked up within the bimonthly reporting on the housing land supply as the position did not change that quickly and he had talked at previous meetings in relation to that.  Consideration was being given to what KPIs should be included in relation to housing land supply going forward but he was able to say that all of these sites would be contributing.

The Chief Executive indicated that, at other authorities, he was used to seeing reporting on the annual number of homes built and the percentage of affordable housing and that was something which could be adopted for the new Council Plan.

Key performance indicators for priority: Housing and Communities

Pages No. 52-53 – KPIs 10, 11, 12 and 13 in relation to homeless applications and cases – A Member questioned how the Council was responding to homelessness as it was not possible to tell from the figures provided.

The Head of Service: Housing advised that advice was being sought in terms of how to benchmark with other districts in order to produce a different set of figures which would provide that information.  Migration cases had peaked in quarter three which had impacted numbers and there had been a high number of cases in temporary accommodation which, coupled with the period of severe weather, had resulted in some becoming homelessness cases.

A Member asked if there was capacity within the service to deal with the additional cases and whether all of the homelessness cases had been dealt with.  The Head of Service: Housing explained that those cases were across more than one reporting figure so it he did not have a response now but it was something which could be built into future reporting.

Page No. 55 – KPI 19 – Percentage of major planning applications overturned at appeal – A Member indicated that he would like an understanding of the cost of appeals and asked if there was a trigger point for government intervention in terms of the number of appeals lost.

The Associate Director: Planning advised that there were different levels of costs, for instance, if someone appealed against refusal of planning permission, costs may be awarded against the Council if it was considered it had acted unreasonably; that was distinct from losing an appeal and incurring the costs of defending an appeal.  Some of the costs would be fairly easy to identify and collate whereas Officer time would be more difficult – all that could be said in that regard was that there would be a proportion of time over the course of the year which would take Officers away from their caseload of applications.  He undertook to work with Finance to extract the information which could be provided going forward.

In terms of the impact of the figures, the government set performance targets for the determination of major and minor applications and the percentage of appeals overturned.  In terms of the latter, the target was 10% - which Tewkesbury Borough Council was dangerously close to – however, this was over a rolling two year time period with a volatile start and end date.  As such, although the authority could make its own internal estimations as to its standing, that was not to say this would align with the government as it was not clear which reporting period it might choose.  Whilst the Council could not change the number of appeals allowed once they had been lost, it could influence the percentage of decisions overall and therefore had the ability to dilute the impact of the appeals being lost – this highlighted why performance was so important.  In terms of the sanctions, in theory the Council was at risk of designation under performance measures for planning permissions and, whilst it was unlikely, there was a possibility that Tewkesbury Borough Council could lose its planning fee income but still be required to do the work to support applications.  The Associate Director: Planning was working closely with the Lead Member for Built Environment in relation to this and the most important thing was to ensure that the good performance in relation to applications in the pipeline was followed-up as this was the only part of the equation which the authority could directly influence.  The Leader of the Council echoed these comments and indicated that, whilst it was possible to calculate the costs of appeals and the Council had spent around £0.5m over the previous year, those cases had been defended in good faith albeit this was not a tenable position.  The Council could not demonstrate a five year housing land supply and was working to put in place a new policy position via the Strategic and Local Plan (SLP) but all of those things would take time to deliver.

A Member noted that the commentary within the report referenced non-determination appeals where the Planning Committee had been minded to refuse and she asked if any statistics were available in relation to whether the appeals overturned were those where the Planning Committee had made a resolution which was against the Officer recommendation in order to identify potential training needs.  The Associate Director: Planning confirmed that information could be collated but it should be borne in mind that decisions which had been made until recently were in the context of believing the Council could demonstrate a five year housing land supply; had the conclusion been reached earlier that was not the case, some of the applications being recommended by Officers for refusal may have been recommended for permission, albeit Members may have had an alternative view.

Pages No. 57-58 – KPIs 21, 22, 23 and 24 in relation to investigation of enforcement cases – A Member noted that the direction of travel for these KPIs was down and he asked what the underlying reason was for this and what was being done to address it.

The Associate Director: Planning advised that, with regard to category A and B cases, the percentage was volatile as it was related to the number of cases.  There had been some internal issues in terms of the transition between the Planning Support Administration team and the action being followed-up by the Enforcement Officer so it was about how to triage and prioritise enforcement cases - once they reached the Enforcement Officers they were generally turned around quickly.  This was something for Officers to manage and had been picked up with the Planning Support Administration team.  His perception was that the Enforcement section at Tewkesbury Borough Council was excellent and there was a very proactive team of Officers but it was important to ensure that internal processes were not making it harder for professional Officers to do their jobs.

Priority: Customer First

Page No. 60 – Objective 1 – Action b) Carry out a full review of the Licensing service – A Member noted that this action, and others including the action in relation to the litter pickers scheme, had been delayed due to resource not being available within the Business Transformation Team.  He assumed the actions in relation to licensing and adoption of a revised charging schedule for Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) had unique reasons as to why they were delayed but he asked whether any lessons could be learnt in terms of being more realistic about what could be delivered and setting appropriate timeframes.

The Business Transformation Manager confirmed there were unique reasons for the delays with the specific actions referenced but these were now under control so he expected progress to be made. 

With regard to CIL, the Associate Director: Planning advised that it was a joint charging schedule and Cheltenham Borough Council in particular had recognised that there was no capacity to deliver this at the same time as the Strategic and Local Plan (SLP).

The Director: Resources explained that demand for the Business Transformation Team had increased significantly since its implementation three or four years ago and the team’s strategic priorities were now governed by the Chief Officer Group (COG).  A presentation had recently been given to the Transform Working Group on what the team was doing this year which he undertook to share with Members.

Priority: Sustainable Environment

Page No. 75 – Objective 2 – Action c) Carry out a review of our litter pickers’ scheme – A Member noted this had been delayed considerably.  She was aware that the litter picker events which had previously been held were no longer happening and she asked whether the Council was engaging with existing litter pickers and if new volunteers were enrolling.

The Head of Service: Environmental Health advised that this action was taking longer than Officers would like due to the need for the circa. 400 litter pickers to sign a new GDPR disclaimer giving their consent to being registered and agreeing to the Council’s privacy notice.  He confirmed that new litter pickers were continuing to register and, once the database was up to date, Officers would be happy to arrange an event.  He also undertook to speak to the Communications team to see if advertisement of the scheme could be improved on the Council’s website.

Key performance indicators for priority: Sustainable Environment

Page No. 79 – KPI 39 – Number of reported enviro-crimes – A Member noted that fly-tipping was increasing and, whilst he recognised it was a difficult problem to address, he asked if there was a reason for the negative direction of travel.

The Head of Service: Environmental Health advised that it was difficult to pinpoint the exact reason which could be due to a number of factors including impact of the pandemic, increased waste being generated over Christmas and the increased cost of living meaning small traders and businesses tried to avoid paying disposal fees.  The Member indicated that, if it was a trend at this particular time of year, it would be helpful to know whether the Council had a response to that.  The Director: Communities undertook to carry out an analysis of the type of materials being fly-tipped and the locations and report back to Members.