Agenda item

The Assistant Director for Corporate Resources and Transformation undertook a presentation to the Panel in relation to the year-end outturn for the Council’s Corporate Scorecard.

Various methods were utilised to assess how well the Council was performing including delivery of the Corporate Plan, outcomes from the service review programme, feedback from the LGA Peer Challenge, the Place/Star Surveys and performance scorecards.

The Corporate Plan has been updated for the period 2019-2023 with the Council’s Corporate Priorities being reviewed and developed by

Cabinet last year and more recently, paying particular consideration to the impact of the pandemic and the Council’s intended recovery activity.

Committee were advised that the Corporate Plan sat above a wider strategic context which included the Corporate Project Management Framework, Corporate Performance Indicators and a range of strategic documents relating to the organisation and its services.  Members acknowledged the three different performance scorecards (Place, Corporate and Service) and their roles in providing key organisational and operational performance data to management as part of the Council’s Performance Framework.

Notwithstanding the impacts of the pandemic, the Corporate Scorecard position for April 2019 to March 2020 indicated that 74% of measures had been achieved or exceeded their target or were within 10% variance of target.  Also, 64% of measures had indicated an improved position compared to the same period in the previous year, or were within 5% of their previous year’s performance levels.

Members were presented with the Corporate Plan’s key successes delivered over the full range of the services during 2019/20, which included:

·         non-decent housing stock remaining under target;

·         consistent support for tenants remaining in their tenancy for 6 months or more following completion of their support package;

·         planning applications processed well above standard targets;

·         20,800 subscribers to the garden waste service; 1,300 more than the previous year with an increase in garden waste tonnage collected;

·         average call waiting time decreased over the year;

·         online payments showing a significant increase compared to the previous year;

·         reduction in staff sickness absence out-turn compared to the previous year.

Members also considered a couple of identified areas for improvement in relation to rent collection and rent arrears, which had been severely affected by the full rollout of Universal Credit during November 2019.  Coupled with a delay in payments made to claimants by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the financial uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak, this had resulted in a substantial decrease in funds to the Council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA).

The Committee took the opportunity to discuss the rent collection and rent arrears issues and considered amongst other things:

·         acknowledgement that the increase in rent arrears due to Universal Credit had been expected and in mitigation, the additional support being provided by the Council to alleviate some of the anxieties being experienced by claimants during this period;

·         the exceptional work ethic of staff who had continued to support claimants and deliver services during the COVID-19 outbreak including the recruitment of additional staff to meet the growing demand;

·         the demand for social housing, the Council’s response to bringing any non-decent homes into use and the operational arrangements for delivering the Council’s planned maintenance programme for housing stock;

·         the increase in people and families presenting as homeless which had been exacerbated further due to the recent pandemic and the need to bring vulnerable people off the streets and into a safer environment;

·         the possible reasons for the significant reduction in rent collection showing during January of each year.

To conclude, the Scrutiny Research Officer took the opportunity to remind Members that the Committee had considered Universal Credit as a topic in the previous year and had made some valuable recommendations to Cabinet that had been approved in February 2020.  It was hoped that the recommendations would complement and enhance the wide range of services already being provided by the Council to support claimants and manage the difficulties associated with facilitation of the Universal Credit regime.

Members acknowledged that previous practice had seen the Committee invite Cabinet Portfolio Holders (on a rolling programme) to attend meetings and give updates and felt this would be a good time to reintroduce the arrangement to enable Overview and Scrutiny Members to receive feedback and progress reports in relation to their recommendations as submitted.

RESOLVED that

a)    the 2019/20 year-end outturn for the Corporate Performance Scorecard, as presented to Committee, be received and noted;

b)    the Service Manager, Scrutiny and Democratic Services be requested to reintroduce the programme for inviting Portfolio Holders to attend Overview and Scrutiny Committee meetings and offer updates/feedback in relation to the implementation of Scrutiny recommendations as approved by Cabinet.