Agenda item

The Assistant Director, Corporate Services and Transformation presented the

Quarter 2 Corporate Scorecard for April to September 2021 to enable

Members to review the levels of performance achieved and further consider

the impact of the pandemic on the Council’s performance.

Members were reminded that the Corporate Plan sat above a wider strategic context which included the Corporate Project Management Framework, the Corporate Performance Framework and a range of strategic documents

relating to the organisation and its services.

The Council used many different tools to assess how well they were performing and these included:

·         The Corporate Plan

·         Performance Scorecards

·         Place Survey/Star Survey

·         LGA Peer Challenge (last challenge was January 2020).

It had been recognised that Ashfield District Council was the only local authority in Nottinghamshire that has continued to deliver their Tier 1 and Tier 2 critical services without interruption throughout the pandemic and had also gone above and beyond with additional services including the Spring Clean and Bulky Waste collections.

As at the end of September 2021, 75% of Corporate Scorecard measures

were achieving or exceeding target or were within 10% variance of their

targets. 81% of measures were also indicating an improved position compared to the same period in the previous year or were within 5% of the previous year’s performance levels.

The key highlights regarding performance were as follows:

Health and Happiness

·         Delivery of Kirkby Leisure Centre is on track and budget

·         Investment in the Lammas and Hucknall Leisure Centres

·         2 Food festivals and 4 cinema events to reinvigorate town centres

Homes and Housing

·         Void relets continuing to show improved performance

·         Progress had continued on developing agile ways of working for Housing staff

·         Affordable housing development programme now in place and progressing with 46 new properties

Economic Growth and Place

·         Delivery of the Towns Fund and Future High Streets programmes is progressing well

·         A bid for Hucknall to the Levelling Up Fund is at the application stage

·         The Maid Marian Line Restoring Your Railways Bid was submitted on time with the outcome awaited

·         Planning performance remained above national standards for major and minor applications in the second quarter

Cleaner and Greener

·         The Council is breaking the trend with a 20% reduction in fly tipping reports received this year compared with 2020

·         Recycling rates for the period April to September 2021, were well above target with a 9% increase compared to the same period last year

·         The Council had successfully bid for funding under the Public Sector Decarbonisation Fund, the Green Homes Grant Phase 1B, the Green Homes Grant Phase 2, and was currently awaiting the outcome of a bid for funding under the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund

Safer and Stronger

·         The Council responded to 4,215 reports of anti-social behaviour, neighbourhood nuisance and environmental crime reports between April 2021 and 1st December 2021

·         A number of environmental crime action days have been undertaken to address fly tipping and waste on land resulting in 88 fines being issued, the highest recorded amount in the Council’s history

·         The Council, alongside partners, was successful in securing £550,000 in October as part of the Safer Streets Quarter 3 Funding programme

·         Funding was secured in April to deliver domestic abuse awareness sessions across 20 primary schools.

Innovate and Improve

·         changes to call handling has seen a further significant 22% reduction in the level of abandoned calls for the period April to September 2021, compared to the previous year

·         Over 33,000 payments have been made online from April to September 2021, a significant increase of 9% compared to the same period last year and a third higher over the last 2 years since the Council implemented its new ‘e-store’, exceeding channel shift predictions

·         The new Customer Portal is due to be launched imminently, supported by a comprehensive publicity campaign, to facilitate further channel shift, and raise awareness of the Council’s modern digital online features.

Members also considered areas for improvement and these included homelessness preventions, a reduction in direct debit payments, an increase in staff sickness levels and a decrease in young people as a proportion of the workforce.

RESOLVED

that the level of performance achieved against the Quarter 2 Corporate

Scorecard for 2021/22, as presented, be received and noted.