Issue - meetings

To provide an update on how the Council is performing for the period 1 October 2020 to 31 December 2020 (report of the Executive Director Commercialisation (S151) enclosed)

Consideration was given to the report of the Deputy Leader of the Council which provided an update on how the Council had performed for the period 1^st October 2020 to 31^st December 2020.

Member were advised that it was generally a positive report, with the following notable achievements:

·         The Waste Collection Service had achieved its highest collection rate since mid-2016, which was a very encouraging achievement, particularly in view of the ongoing Covid pandemic and the recent bad weather;

·         The percentage of calls answered by the Customer Contact Service was 93.5%;

·         There had been an improvement in Council-wide sickness of approximately 25%, in terms of days lost per full-time equivalent.

Unfortunately, the incidence of fly tipping continued to increase, rising by 98 incidents since the last quarter.  The East Coast Community Safety Partnership was working with partners and Lincolnshire Police to introduce cameras, and using the evidence from them to assist in identifying perpetrators.  Lincolnshire Police were stopping vehicles more regularly, there was increased inter-agency work across the county to share intelligence, and social media was being used on a regular basis to highlight the issue of fly tipping. Unfortunately, investigations had been impacted as a result of courts being closed as a result of the Covid pandemic – there was a significant backlog which had had a detrimental impact on the Council taking cases through for prosecution, but as the Covid situation improved, the backlog of cases for prosecution should also improve.

DECISION:

That the contents of the report be noted.

(Other options considered:

• Do nothing

Reasons for decision:

• To ensure that the Council’s performance is properly scrutinised.)

To provide an update on how the Council is performing for the period 1^st October 2020 to 31^st December 2020 (report of the Executive Director – Commercialisation (S151) enclosed).

Consideration was given to the report of the Executive Manager for Growth, which provided an update on how the Council was performing for the period 1 October 2020 to 31 December 2020.

The Quarter 3 2020-21 Performance Report detailed in Appendix A aimed to provide members, businesses, and residents with an overview of how the Council was performing against a number of key strategic indicators in an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The reported indicators focussed on performance and business intelligence as compared to the previous year to highlight how key services had performed whilst the organisation had continued to respond to the challenges and pressures that the pandemic had presented to both the organisation and the district as a whole.

As highlighted previously the report did not contain a suite of performance indicators to the same scale and breadth as presented to the Panel in previous years. This was because, in many cases, the focus of many council services and their attendant resources had shifted away from pre-March 2020 ‘business as usual activity’, and were instead now focused on a different range of areas directly aligned to supporting the council with its pandemic response.

Consequently, the report sought to provide a summary of performance in key areas which reflected the current performance of the council, whilst the organisation remained focused on supporting its communities, residents and local business in extra-ordinary times. The narrative within the report provided supplementary commentary to support the data. Several service managers were in attendance at the meeting and would be able to assist with any supplementary questions.

The Panel considered the report, and the following issues were raised:

Fly-tipping:

• Members commented that it may be useful to be provided with an update on success with enforcement in relation to fly-tipping recently and how the issue of fly-tipping was being dealt with County-wide.

• Members asked for clarification on how much money has been spent on fly-tipping in the last month.
  • Officers responded that for December 2019 the cost for fly-tipping was £3,000. For the same period in December 2020, the figure was double that at £6,000.
  • Officers would share with members a breakdown of the figures for fly-tipping costs over the last few months.

• Members raised concerns about the collection of evidence for fly-tipping incidents and asked whether covert cameras were being used to catch fly-tippers ‘in the act’.
  • Officers advised that the use of covert cameras would be covered in a later item on the agenda.

Social media engagement:

• Members queried the basis of collection for the number of social media engagements stated within the report.
  • Officers responded that the social media engagement numbers were collected via Google Analytics and that the basis for this information would be clarified

Void properties:

• Members noted that there had been a dramatic fall in the re-let time for void properties and questioned whether this was related to the Covid pandemic?
  • Officers agreed that there been a significant variance in voids performance between the Q3 performance this year  ...  view the full minutes text for item 46