Agenda item

Lead Executive Member – Cllr Hicks

O&S.74/16     

The Panel considered a report that presented the Quarter 3 performance indicators for 2016/17.

In discussion, the following points were raised:-

(a)   Some Members reiterated their previously raised concerns in relation to the planning enforcement service.  In comparison to other local authorities, these Members stated that there was a perception that the Council provided only a light touch service and was far too lenient on developers and other serial offenders.  Furthermore, a Member was also of the view that, for some of the historical backlog of cases, the Council had been too soft in its approach.

In reply, officers acknowledged these concerns but advised that, in a number of instances, it was simply not expedient to pursue legal action against an applicant.  Nonetheless, if any Members had specific instances of where they felt the Council had been too lenient, then they were encouraged to provide these examples to officers outside of the meeting for further consideration.  Finally, the Panel was advised that there was still an upward trend of enforcement cases being received by the Council and this had been the main reason for additional resource being approved during the recent Budget setting process;

(b)   With regard to the figures and comments in the performance reports, the Panel expressed its frustration that the information contained was (in some instances) both out of date and not cross referenced between the figures and supporting comments.  At this point, Members were reminded of the ability to self-serve, as they all had access to the online dashboards which provided near real time performance data.  In addition, since the published report was for the Quarter 3 period, this information was retrospective and could always be considered as being out of date;

(c)    It was confirmed that, since the complaints recording procedures had been amended, the figures were illustrated differently which made it difficult at this time to draw comparisons with last year;

(d)   Some surprise was expressed that the top call type during this quarter had been ‘Call in the wrong queue’.  In reply, officers advised that this had been due to a problem with the call routing system that had since been rectified;

(e)   The fact that the Corporate Balanced Scorecard illustrated that there were no indicators with a below target performance during this quarter was welcomed by the Panel;

(f)     At the request of the Chairman, the Human Resources Community Of Practice Lead provided an explanation for the marked increase in both short and long-term sickness absence.  Following this update, the Panel requested that it receive a more detailed update on sickness absence at its meeting in June 2017.

It was then:

RESOLVED

1.   That the performance levels against target communicated in the Balanced Scorecard and the performance figures in the background and the exception report be noted;

2.   That officers be reminded of the importance of presenting the most up to date information in future reports; and

3.   That the Human Resources Community Of Practice Lead present a Sickness Absence Update to the Panel at its June 2017 meeting.