Agenda item

To consider and discuss Corporate Performance Report 2022/23

for Quarter 4: 1st January to 31st March 2023.

The Committee Scrutinised a report which presented a review of the Council performance for the fourth quarter of 2022/23 (1 January 2023 to 31 March 2023). The Committee was invited to examine areas on under performance and where appropriate recommend remedial action. The Committee was asked to note the areas of good performance.

The overview and scrutiny of performance aims to provide assurance that:

·         our business plan priorities are aligned to the needs of our residents

·         our services are good or are on track to good

·         any services that are not on track, or have identified risks, are being supported or challenged to rectify this

·         demand indicators are being noted and service provision assessed accordingly.

The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of performance against business plan priorities for the period 1^st January to 31^st March 2023 (Quarter 4) and where applicable the End of Year targets.

The report refers throughout to the dashboards and infographics provided as Appendix A of the report.

Appendix B of the report comprises the response to a query raised at the March meeting of the Performance Overview & Scrutiny Committee.

Annual business plans ran from 1^st April 2022 to 31^st March 2023; it is now year-end. The business plans included a range of actions and measures across all our services aimed at achieving the aspirations of the Corporate Plan and putting our residents first.

The Corporate Plan 2022/27 was approved by Cabinet in September 2022; going forward our business plans will be closely aligned to the priorities set out in the Plan and will run from 1^st April 2023 to 31^st March 2027.

Business plans are kept under review by services and can be influenced by both internal and external factors including increased demand, reduction in resources, changes in legislation or policies.

Members were advised that it is important that our performance is viewed in the context of our borough, the demand for our services and the resources available to us.

The Council needs to monitor and plan for the impact of both internal influences (e.g., staff capacity) and external factors (e.g., increased demand due to increased cost of living) on all its services.

Members were informed that

• 89% (163/184) of actions are on track or completed
• 71% (103/145) of risks are low, very low or closed; less than 2% (2/145) are high
• 79% (41/52) of targeted measures are on or within target
• 69% (36/52) of measures with end of year targets are predicted to achieve them.
• The report sets out sets out in a chart showing End of Year Actions, Risks and Measures. Members noted that 0 measures, 3 actions & 5 risks have not been updated by the service.These figures are as expected for the end of the reporting year.

The Board was informed that each business plan measure is aligned to one of the five corporate priorities or is designated as a service specific measure.

The infographic on page 3 of Appendix A of the report gives an overview of progress against each priority and shows we are on track in most areas; the quality homes targets met their end of year outputs in full.

Pages 4 to 14 of Appendix A of the report give an overview of progress against business plan measures within each service area (sorted alphabetically).

The report provides a performance measure breakdown that includes:

• trend or polarity (based on previous 3 years)
• quarterly RAG (red/ amber/ green) rating for current year
• End of Year (EOY) target & RAG rating (to reflect final EOY figures)
• benchmarking information & its source where available or applicable.

The summary set out in paragraph 5.2 and Appendix A of the report addresses issues raised when Corporate Performance was last reported to the Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee in March 2023. It aims to give the overall health of each service, the quality of services and timeliness of each service.

A Member referred to the disparity in the reporting system of street light information on the Council’s website. It was emphasised that access to individual street lights on the website indicated that some lights were faulty whilst accessing those street lights via an area on the website indicated that those street lights had been repaired. The Member had reported this problem to the appropriate officers in March 2023 and no response was received on the issue.

Shelly Kipling advised that she would investigate the matter and formally respond to the Member.

Members made reference to some of the other performance measure percentages shown in Appendix A of the report which seemed to be contradictory or confusing.

In response to the reference by Members to the performance measures and the vagueness of the information shown in the Summary comments in paragraph 5.2 of the report, the Board was informed that the Council uses the CorVu system to generate the performance management reports. From October 2023 the system will  be decommissioned by the Council. It is no longer supported by the provider. This will be the final report generated by the system. The Board was advised that Power BI would be the new model of reporting performance management and is in the process of replacing CorVu for this process. The new model will incorporate a more detailed Summary (shown in Paragraph 5.2 of the report) with explanations and reasoning associated with the red, amber and green indicators shown in Appendix A of the report which can be confusing in the current reporting format. Benchmarking where appropriate would also be included. The new system will be simpler and easier to understand from a Member viewpoint and for the public on the website.

The Chairman suggested that to enable more detailed scrutiny on the various sectors of the report, the report could be restructured in future so that the Board can consider fewer sectors of the report which will allow sectors to be considered in detail at scheduled meetings throughout the year. There was also the suggestion that officers responsible for those sectors could be requested attend those meetings.

The Board was informed that it would be useful and informative for Board Members to attend a training session for a short period prior to the next Board meeting with regard to the new Power BI system of reporting and how this will translate and report Corporate Performance. The Chairman requested Members to identify areas of performance measures shown in Appendix A to the report to enable specific focus on these areas at training.

Resolved that

(1)          the progress made in implementing the 2022/23 business plan objectives be noted;

(2)          the Board notes the comments on progress, in particular the narrative that relates to any red measures;

(3)          for future meetings of the Board, the Corporate Performance report be restructured so that the Board can consider fewer sectors of the report which will allow those sectors to be considered in detail at scheduled meetings throughout the year with appropriate officers being requested to attend those meetings; and

(4)          a training session be held for Board Members for a short period prior to the next Board meeting with regard to the new Power BI system of reporting and how this will translate and report Corporate Performance.