Agenda item

To provide an update on how the Council is performing for the period 1st April 2025 to 30th June 2025 (report of the Assistant Director – Corporate enclosed).

Consideration was given to the report of the Assistant Director – Corporate which provided the Cabinet with an update on how the Council performed for the period 1^st April 2025 to 30^th June 2025.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance introduced the report on behalf of the Portfolio Holder for Corporate and Environmental Services raised the following points:

• The report updated Cabinet on progress against KPIs.
• 83% of KPIs were on or above target, 7% were slightly below target and 7% were significantly under target.
• Strong areas of performance included:
  • Planning applications, both major and minor, which were well above government and internal targets
  • Homelessness prevention was performing well despite previous underperformance
  • Council housing stock had high compliance with statutory safety checks
  • First contact resolution rates in customer contact had improved over the last 12 months.
• Areas that required improvement included:
  • Recycling and Waste – both the percentage of household waste collected for recycling/composting and the percentage of contaminated recycling were well below target.
  • Corporate complaints and Subject Access Requests response rates within the statutory timescale were both below target.

Members considered the report and made the following comments:

• Members queried why there was no figure for household waste collected for recycling for Quarter 1.
  • The Business Intelligence and Change Manager responded that these figures were provided by LCC and were a quarter in arrears.
    • Members requested that this be made clearer in the report.
• Members queried why the Q1 figure for subject access requests responded to within the statutory timeline was the same as the figure for Q4.
  • The Business Intelligence and Change Manager confirmed that these figures were correct and each related to three subject access requests received in each quarter.
• Members questioned why the rate for household waste collected for recycling had reduced so significantly and what the Council was doing to encourage residents to recycle.
  • The Business Intelligence and Change Manager responded that the service had given a response at Performance Monitoring Panel which related to the current waste collection model allowing for the presentation of unlimited waste which didn’t incentivise the separation or reduction of waste. The new collection model would better support this.
  • In terms of engagement on social media, the Council’s posts generally reached a wide audience but specific posts around recycling did not get the most engagement, typically below 1%. This would be fed back to the service.
  • The Leader commented that the figures seemed to be anomaly and expressed concern that LCC’s figures could be incorrect.
• Members commented that the commentary regarding the proportion of homes that did not meet the Decent Homes Standard had been cut off in the report.
  • The Business Intelligence and Change Manager would circulate this to members outside of the meeting.
• Members asked what action was being taken to fill market pitches.
  • The Leader responded that the Markets Manager now had a successful Facebook page with lots of interest and the recent good weather had increased the number of occupied market pitches.
  • He added that future events put on by the BID and the Communities team would help to fill more market pitches, but the occupancy rate was currently on an upward trend.
• Members queried what the expected target date was for the pump at the Castle Sports Swimming Pool to be operational to see swim numbers increase.
  • The Portfolio Holder for Community Development commented that it had been a complex issue that had taken longer than expected to resolve. Specialist advice was currently being sought on how to repair the pump.
• Members queried the commentary for the number of properties improved through Council intervention and whether officers within the team had been promoted.
  • The Portfolio Holder for Strategic and Operational Housing commented that two longstanding officers within the private sector housing team had retired but new officers had been recruited prior to them leaving so the team was progressing well.
• Members raised that a number of issues had been discussed at PMP in relation to the waste service and that communication methods in this service needed to be changed to improve performance.

DECISION:

That the Quarter 1 Performance Report 2025/26 be noted.

(Other Options considered

• Not to monitor performance.

Reasons for decision:

·         To ensure the Councils performance is properly scrutinised.)