Issue - meetings

The Corporate Performance Report provides an analysis of the Council’s performance for the 1st quarter of 2021-22. The report, set out at Annexe 1, is being presented to each of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees for comment and any recommendations they may wish to make to the Executive.

The Policy and Performance Officer and Heads of Service to highlight areas relating to this Committee’s remit (Pages to note are pages 38-65 of the Agenda papers).

The Committee reviewed the Corporate Performance Report for Quarter 2 of 2021/22. In response to questions to Heads of Service, the Committee noted:

·         The number of Careline clients had declined due to a drop-off in the number of referrals to the service.

·         Councillors could intervene on behalf of tenants of housing associations, even though the primary relationship was between the landlord and tenant. Councillors could exert leverage by directly contacting the appropriate senior officer at the housing association.

·         The same operatives that collected residential waste and recycling also picked up fly-tips, so there was an impact from accelerating fly-tip removals.

·         With reference to the work exploring the feasibility of PV arrays on the council’s larger buildings, this was exploring both the cost/benefit and the physical feasibility of such installations.

·         Due to the change in the responsive repairs contractor, the independent tenant satisfaction survey following completion of works had been temporarily suspended. The operative carrying out a repair still asked the tenant for feedback as they completed a job.

·         A number of initiatives had been introduced to speed up the process of re-letting void properties, including virtual viewings. The contractor was actively recruiting staff to address the turnaround time before properties were ready to be re-let.

·         The revised Planning Enforcement Plan was due to come to the Committee in January 2022, which would give an opportunity for councillors to have input into the council’s approach to planning enforcement.

·         The O&S Committees would have the opportunity to consider the Performance Indicators and targets at their meetings in January 2022.

The Committee RESOLVED to note the Corporate Performance Report for Q2, and requested an informal briefing on Planning Enforcement ahead of the Planning Enforcement Plan being considered by the Committee.

[Secretary’s note: subsequent to the meeting the Head of Commercial Services circulated an analysis of calls to the Careline service by reason for call for the period July – September 2021, which had been requested by the Committee.]