Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from the following members:

Councillor Dexter, substituted by Councillor M. Saunders;

Councillor Curran, substituted by Councillor D. Saunders.

To approve the Minutes of the Corporate Performance Review Working Party meeting held on 27 June 2017, copy attached.

Councillor D. Saunders proposed, Councillor Connor seconded and Members agreed the minutes as a correct record of the meeting held on 27 June 2017.

Tim Willis, Director of Corporate Resources introduced the report and made the following highlights:

·  The corporate performance was good for the period under review;

·  Targets in some instances have been removed after consultation with Service areas and it was concluded that they were no longer relevant;

·  These targets have been replaced by more challenging ones in most cases;

·  Most of the targets removed were ‘green’ as opposed to ‘amber’ or ‘red’.

Members made the following comments and observations:

·  Streets with litter below expected levels – there are more stringent inspections now underway. However the levels have increased from 1.7% to 10.6% over a 2 year period, why?

·  Detritus has jumped up to 17% in two years;

·  Residents have raised some concern about the areas that the mechanical sweepers cannot reach because of on-street parking;

·  Mechanical sweepers may not be able to reach pavements;

·  Mechanical sweepers do a superb on especially during major events like festivals as they do get rid of litter in a short space of time;

·  The pier in Broadstairs does need sweeping up;

·  Public opinion surveys on street cleaning, recycling and parks and open spaces, there is a marked deterioration in public perception. Is it because the council is asking the same question?

·  Crime statistics has gone up. Why?

·  There were no figures for ‘Count of Enterprises in Thanet.’

·  Information on the number of days to deal with reports/complaints of anti-social behaviour (ASB) has been removed from this report. why? It is important to have the information to know how long it takes council to come to a closure of a complaint;

·  Number of average sickness per employee has gone down and this was good news.

Tim Willis, Trevor Kennett, Head of Operational Services and Helen Havercroft, Head of Growth and Development gave the following responses:

·  There was now a much more robust inspection system and its now a statutory instrument in the code of practice for litter collection;

·  The stats are much more accurate;

·  With mechanical sweepers that were introduced, there is an officer expectation now that the levels of litter will go down in the coming quarters;

·  From October there will be change in how manual sweepers were deployed as they will be deployed from a central point to give more direction on what is being done. This will build flexibility for the teams;

·  Mechanical sweepers do clean some pavements in some cases;

·  The pier in Broadstairs will indeed be attended to and swept;

·  Public opinion graphs are a once a year snapshot. The figures would have been taken in November 2016. This is the same information that is published every quarter;

·  From this point on there will be residents’ surveys to be conducted starting with the one in October and it will not be self-selected sample, but samples by geographic locations. Ongoing surveys will be on different issues relating to services;

·  Crime statistics would best be answered by Kent Police. Members could raise this question at the Members Briefing on 05 September 2017;

·  Council  ...  view the full minutes text for item 216.

Dominic Whelan, Director of East Kent Services (Shared Services) led discussion on this item and made the following comments:

·  The processing of benefits applications for this quarter was slightly below target. The team are working on correcting the situation and reviewing processes which will hopefully improve the situation;

·  Average call waiting time is also slightly below target but this is primarily due to specific events occurring in this quarter including an increase in complex calls (which take longer) following, as an example, the introduction of the new Council Tax Support Scheme and also a large amount of calls in relation to the Election (residents calling about postal votes for instance);

·  In addition the introduction of the new telephone system had some technical challenges including a temporary failure of the automated call handling system which meant that there was much larger volume of manual call handling than normal;

·  However, it was also highlighted that there is a general increase in pressure within the customer service and revenues & benefits teams from the ongoing resource pressure as work is being handled by less staff as vacancies are help open or removed due to financial pressures.

Members observed that most of the targets were met and adequate explanations had been given to Members in instances where there were slippages in performance.

Members noted the report.

Ms Deborah Upton, CEx of East Kent Housing introduced the report and gave the following summary of highlights:

·  P&R, a new contractor for heating and hot water repairs was contracted as from April this year. There has been a problem with data handover between old and new contractors, and this has affected the availability for this quarter by the new service provider;

·  Gas servicing - 9 properties were without certificates at the end of the quarter, although in the process of forced entry. However the current position is that all properties have a certificate and compliance is 100% across EKH;

·  Capital programme is under target;

·  Void performance has been incredibly strong in this quarter;

·  Arrears are showing behind target, as this is a year-end target and would always be the case in the first quarter of each year.

Members thereafter asked questions and made the following comments:

·  HRA capital spend is only 2.37% in Q1. Was this because EKH was waiting for a significant capital programme to start before supplying the information on performance for this item?

·  Universal Credit roll-out - has it has any impact on rent payment?

Ms Upton and Mark Anderson, Director of Property Services (EKH) gave the following response:

·  EKH has just concluded the stock condition survey for all the partner local councils. This identified that some of the assumptions used in the budget build were not accurate and hence the budget figures were too high in some areas. ;

·  There is a need to change the focus of the budget during the year as it was important that money was only spent on areas where work was necessary, not just to meet target;

·  Royal Crescent – This makes up a large part of the budget, with very high costs, and there is a need to carry out an options appraisal to identify the options for the future, of which carrying out the work is one

·  Universal Credit has not had a substantial impact on rent payments during this quarter, however two more postcode areas had a Universal Credit rollout in July with more to follow in September;

·  Pilot studies indicate that there will be a high impact in the first six months of applicants receiving Universal Credit;

·  EKH is working on sustainability strategies keep residents in their tenancies and avoid rent arrears where possible. It is hoped that this will mitigate the impact of Universal Credit.

Members noted the report.