Agenda item

To receive the Quarter 2 Performance Report from the Director for Corporate Services.

•      Cabinet considered the report on 16 December 2020

•      Scrutiny have requested the report in order to provide feedback to Cabinet and/or identify topics which may be added to the Scrutiny Work Plan.

The Director for Corporate Services introduced a report advising that having established a new Corporate Strategy in September 2020 the purpose of this report was to update Cabinet on progress in relation to delivery of the Council’s Corporate priorities under the new Corporate strategy, providing both a set of Corporate Performance Measures alongside key project updates under each priority theme. The report provided details relating to the first and second quarters of the financial year 2020-21.

This was the first corporate performance report measuring performance against the new Corporate Strategy 2020-24 and included new and refreshed measures.

It is important the Council regularly receives and considers performance information to evaluate progress.

The Council’s Corporate Performance Measures are used to focus on key priority services and projects as set out in the corporate plan and seek to help inform the Cabinet, Members and Officers with regard to the formation of policy and oversight of delivery.

In addition information on complaints had been incorporated so these could be considered alongside performance data.

This information had been provided to the scrutiny committee for the committee to consider so that it could be used to inform the development of the scrutiny plan moving forward.

Note: The committee was not being asked to scrutinise the performance framework – this was an information report any questions about the performance indicators would be posed to the relevant Directors after the meeting.

Moving forward:

The performance framework is being developed and would be made available in the New Year to members. This would set out the context for each of the elements that are being pulled together. In addition to the these performance indicators we are also looking to develop a “State of Melton” report which would also set out those indicators that the council does not directly control but give the context within which we are operating and would be used to develop policy eg. demographics, economy etc.

Indicators were also being developed, which may be useful to ward members relevant to their ward and the directors for Housing and Communities and Growth and Regeneration would be sending out some initial indicators in the new year which would be developed and expanded into further Ward level data where possible.

During the discussion the following points were noted:

·         The Monitoring Officer advised that corporate complaints had now been incorporated into the performance measures, this was also being fed back at service level. There had been a lot work done on service improvements which was overseen at Senior Leadership level and trends were being identified back to the root causes. Further information regarding these findings would be brought back to Scrutiny through these performance reports.

·         The Monitoring Officer advised that customers were able to come to the website to provide positive feedback as well as make complaints. In addition, there was now an inbox compliments@melton.gov.uk which was monitored and recorded accordingly. Members agreed to promote this to the public.

·         Cllr Browne asked for recognition to be passed to officers and teams for the excellent progress around housing benefit claims and the efficient way the claims are turned around assisting vulnerable people in the middle of a national crisis.

·         The Director for Growth and Regeneration confirmed to members that a planning decision of 10 properties or more would be classed as a major planning decision.

·         The Director for Corporate Services would contact the Director for Housing and Communities for an update on the backlog of undisputed invoices and would report back to Members.

·         Members requested regular feedback regarding all phone calls made to customer services including the number of calls received, the length of time taken before calls were answered and the nature of the call.

RESOLVED

The Committee NOTED the report.