Issue - meetings

To provide an update on how the Council is performing for the period 1 October 2025 to 31 December 2025 (report of the Assistant Director – Corporate enclosed).

Consideration was given to the report of the Assistant Director – Corporate which provided an update on how the Council was performing for the period 1 October 2025 to 31 December 2025.

The Business Intelligence and Change Manager introduced the report and highlighted the following points:

The report reflected similar stable levels of performance as were seen in Quarter 2:

•       87% of the Council’s performance metrics presented a positive position against targets

•       10% were slightly below target

•       3% were under target

Members’ attention was drawn to two key areas where performance had been under pressure in the quarter — complaints handling and leisure participation.  Leisure referred to the number of swims indicator - this wasn’t a target, but being a trend measure it was possible to observe a significant dip in the last few quarters which linked to the ongoing pump issue discussed at agenda item 3.

Complaints Performance (referencing the improvement work – content source Project Update Report)

As Members were aware, some under?performance in timeliness and visibility of complaint handling continued to be experienced. This was a key issue which was a regular discussion at SLT (Senior Leadership Team) level and the team was working closely with the service to address this with the service. The wider corporate review had highlighted several structural issues contributing to this — including unclear accountable officer routes, inconsistent processes between services, limited corporate visibility of cases, and fragmented policy storage and data insight.

To address this, a programme of improvements was already in train. A merge had been undertaken of the legacy complaints systems into a single partnership wide triage record, giving much clearer oversight and contingency, especially for those with shared teams and managers. Work with PSPS had been taken forward to improve the website journey for customers submitting complaints. The Terms of Reference for the new ‘Complaints Clinic’ — which would focus on learning through feedback — had been completed and invites were being circulated. Housing Services had also strengthened their approach, ensuring managers provided direct responses to avoid unnecessary delays.

Further actions include developing a read?only dashboard for Assistant Directors, clearer routing to accountable officers, and micro?training for case handlers on issuing responses and tone. These steps were designed to improve both the speed and quality of complaint handling as Q4 approached.

In summary, Q3 showed continued strong performance in most areas with two key areas of pressure — complaints and leisure — but with strong, targeted remedial work already underway and strong communication between officers, SLT and members.

Members considered the report, and the following issues were raised:

·       Members queried whether the risk factors associated with the corporate complaints system were appropriate.

o   The Business Intelligence and Change Manager advised that performance issues related to response times were being addressed and confirmed that no concerns had been raised by the Local Government Ombudsman, noting that all complaints continued to receive a response.

·       Members asked for an overview of the types of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 71