Agenda item

The report included the performance report, which provided details of the key performance measures reported through the corporate performance framework for 2023/24 and the performance scorecard, which provided information on four key elements of performance for the Council covering Finance, Customer Service, Performance and Human Resources indicators. Within the performance report and performance scorecard, outturns which were performing at or better than target were classified as Green, those which were within 5% of the target are Amber and those which were more than 5% of the target were Red. At the end of Quarter 2, 92 indicators had outturns reported with a Red, Amber or Green status. Of these, 62 were Green (67%), 10 were Amber (11%) and 20 were Red (22%).

RESOLVED that the performance report be noted including the action taken to improve performance where required.

The report included the performance report, which provided details of the key performance measures reported through the corporate performance framework for 2023/24 and the performance scorecard, which provided information on four key elements of performance for the Council covering Finance, Customer Service, Performance and Human Resources indicators. Within the performance report and performance scorecard, outturns which were performing at or better than target were classified as Green, those which were within 5% of the target are Amber and those which were more than 5% of the target were Red. At the end of Quarter 2, 92 indicators had outturns reported with a Red, Amber or Green status. Of these, 62 were Green (67%), 10 were Amber (11%) and 20 were Red (22%).

Each Cabinet Member addressed the performance indicators which had a red status as follows-

Leader

Strategic Infrastructure projects: percentage profiled spend achieved

The Council remained committed to the delivery of the South East Aylesbury Link Road and continued to be involved in discussions with central government regarding the financing of the project. Securing these funds had taken far longer than anticipated, however a substantial portion of the funding, through the Housing Infrastructure Fund, had now been agreed with Homes England. 

Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources

Average Call Wait Time

This was below 5 minutes for the last four quarters, but it was still above the target level of 3 minutes although there was an improvement in Quarter 2. Quarter 2 was a busy period with home to school transport at the start of term and garden waste renewals. Online contacts were being promoted, including development of chat bots in four key services and use of call back facility.

Overall revenue (forecast) variance (%) across the Council

Addressed in the previous report.

£ value of unsecured debt > 90 days (excl Business Rate, Housing Benefit and Council Tax, and not secured against a property or asset) across the Council

Addressed in the previous report – the service area had set up a Task and Finish Group for adult social care debt and was also looking at improving processes including automation.

Average time for processing new Housing Benefit claims (days)

Average time for processing Housing Benefit change claims (days)

The backlog of claims was due to closing the previous system and now having a single system as this was an annual rolling target. However, the backlog of claims had now been cleared so improvements were expected.

Cabinet Member for Education and Children’s Services

% of children's social care assessments completed in 45 working days

% of children with Initial Child Protection Conferences completed within 15 working days of the strategy discussion

% of Children in Need seen within 4 weeks

Percentage of new Education, Health and Care plans issued within 20 weeks (excluding exceptions)

% of initial Family Support Plans completed within 31 working days

The Cabinet Member responded to all the red indicators commenting that the red status was due to an increase in demand, staffing and recruitment issues and less educational psychologists. The service area was also going through a transformational change to improve services but left a period of uncertainty.

Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing

Number of younger people (aged 18-64) admitted to permanent residential or nursing care homes per head of 100,000 population (cumulative)

In line with national trends there was an increase in demand and the Service Area were using the Better Lives Strategy to improve outcomes and enable residents to live at home where possible.

% of young people whose Adult Social Care Assessment was completed before they turned 18 years old (cumulative).

The Cabinet Member reported that she had been working with the Corporate Director to address this, whilst there were small numbers it was important to ensure that the Improvement Plan brought this back on track.

% of successful drug treatment completions of those in treatment

Percentage of service users with needs related to Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) seen or assessed within 2 working days of first contacting the service

These two indicators related to Public Health and recent data coming through showed an improvement, which would hopefully mean that future indicators would no longer be red.

Cabinet Member for Planning and Regeneration

Percentage of Planning Enforcement Notice Appeals Upheld

The Cabinet Member reported that the Q2 outturn was 21% against a target of 20% which was due to the decisions of the Inspectorate that were difficult to predict.

Cabinet Member for Transport

Percentage of Category 1 and 2H defects repaired in 2 and 5 working days respectively

Performance in Q2 was 89% which was lower (worse) than the target of 95% but was an improvement from Q1 (70%). There was a 300% increase in the number of reported defects towards the end of last year due to a significant period of sub-zero temperatures last December followed by repeated cycles of wet and freezing conditions into January. There had been improvements since.

Percentage of reported Rights of Way issues dealt with in target time

There was an increasing use of rights of way which led to more queries. In addition, there had been vacancies in the team which had been filled in September, so performance improvements were expected.

Number of uncommitted s106 contributions that must be used within two years

At the beginning of this year the Council undertook a review of all the s106 contributions that it held. This identified contributions deemed to be at risk as they were unspent and approaching the expiry date set out in the relevant s106 agreements (this situation arose due to multiple factors pre and post unitary). Following the review, the use of contributions has been prioritised so that contributions most at risk were able to be used in accordance with the relevant s106 agreements and a new decision making and monitoring process had been introduced for 2024 to ensure contributions were committed at an earlier stage.

RESOLVED that the performance report be noted including the action taken to improve performance where required.