Issue - meetings

Cabinet noted a presentational refresh of the report. This new approach was meant to ensure a more transparent and clear to understand sharing of performance information. The council priorities and targets remained the same with a focus on issues that mattered most to local people.

The performance figures demonstrated a general trend of improvement, with room for improvement in some areas. Members also acknowledged the demand which continued to be placed upon the Council’s Housing Team, where increased pressure meant that some key figures this quarter have been below target.

An example cited at the meeting was that as at the end of March the council had some 51 households in hotel accommodation. However that figure currently stood at two. A recent letter of praise following a visit from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government acknowledged the good work by the Housing Team.

Cabinet further considered the recommendations from the meeting of the Finance, Budget & Performance Scrutiny Panel held on the 30 August 2018, which are as detailed below:

Recommendation 1

That the "Count of enterprises in Thanet" indicator should be amended to a ‘Count of enterprises across Kent.’ This was because the level of retention (under the business rates retention scheme) was dependent on how Thanet District Council performed against other councils participating in the scheme in attracting business enterprises to operate in the district.

Recommendation 2

That Cabinet introduces performance targets for the issues highlighted in ‘Grey’ in the report, if it was not possible to so, a report be brought back to the Panel advising why the proposal could not be implemented. Members thanked the Panel for the proposals.

Councillor Campbell and Councillor Crow-Brown spoke under Council Procedure Rule 20.1.

Councillor Gregory proposed, Councillor Game seconded and Cabinet agreed the following:

1.  To note the Council’s performance;

2.  That with regards to recommendation 1 from the Finance Scrutiny Panel: confirm that future performance reports would identify a comparison of enterprises within Kent;

3.  That with regards to recommendation 2 from the Finance Scrutiny Panel: to explore how best to report the contextual indicators which currently do not have a target (i.e. those represented as grey in the Cabinet report) in order to understand whether new performance measures can be introduced in future.

Hannah Thorpe, Head of Communications introduced the report and advised Members that the presentation style had been changed to make the report more transparent and easier to understand. The general overview was that the performance had been positive and improving whilst acknowledging that there were some areas where the performance was below target.

The Council like most other councils across the country was experiencing unprecedented levels of demand for housing. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government indicated through a letter to the Council that they were impressed by how Thanet District Council was managing this demand. The Council had also experienced a large increase in Freedom of Information requests (FOIs) and was working on new approaches for managing the case load which was expected to improve the performance levels of responding to FOIs

Members made comments and raised questions as follows:

?  In the period under review, the HRA capital spend was at 2.41% of 100%. Was this not a low performance?

?  It was good to note that the statistics for homelessness had gone down significantly;

?  Had officers done any work to establish the reasons for the surge in homelessness?

?  Did the Capital Programme include housing?

?  If the implementation of the Capital Programme led to completed homes, there would not be an increase in homelessness;

?  The demolition of old garages could provide additional space to build new houses;

?  The average meterage of boats/boat houses moored at the Ramsgate Port & harbour had been exceeded, but the profit had gone down. Why was that the case?

?  Was there a difference in charges for the meterage?

?  Were there different rates for motorhomes?

?  Members thanked officers for the new presentational style of the performance information and hoped that where possible more information narrative could be added;

?  Where there sanctions that could be imposed on the Council for failing to meet the deadlines for responding to FOI requests?

?  The sections in the report highlighted in ‘Grey’ did not have statistical information like targets. Members queried why this was the case?

?  Enforcement report: The report showed that the enforcement figures had gone down. Why was it the case? Was this because there was not enough staff to enforce or was it because there was improved behaviour by residents?

?  Could performance information regarding the enterprise counts across Kent be used rather than the SE as this could be more meaningful because the performance of the council in collecting business rates would be measured against other councils in the county? This would determine how much of the proportion of collection the council would retain (under the business retention scheme for the county);

Ms Thorpe gave the following responses:

?  With regards to the HRA performance, the 100% target is an end of year target (rather than target for the quarter under review) and there was still time to complete the work before end of the year;

?  FOIs – There had been an increased demand for information and the council was working a new approach that would help improve  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12