Agenda item

*O&S(I) 9       

The Committee considered a report that presented the Performance Measures for Quarter 4 for 2015/16.

In discussion, reference was made to:-

(a)    the dashboard information now being readily available for Members to view on their IPads.  Officers highlighted the recent Member Drop-in Sessions during which accessing the dashboards (and the consequent live performance information) was illustrated to Members.  Whilst a relatively new concept that would evolve, it was agreed that the lead Hub Committee Member should work with officers to ensure that the performance information is up to date, accurate and relevant;

(b)    the quarterly performance reports.  In addition to being able to access the dashboards, the Committee was assured that it would continue to receive the quarterly performance reports;

(c)    the work of the Performance Measures Task and Finish Group.  The view was expressed that the Group may feel a twelve month review would be opportune to ensure that the reports were still focusing upon the indicators of most interest and relevance to Members.  As a guide, the Committee was of the view that the current most important performance measures should be focused around: Development Management; Waste and Recycling; the Contact Centre; Customer Satisfaction and Complaints against Service(s);

(d)    the average call answer time.  The Committee recognised the current pressures facing the Contact Centre and acknowledged that a new telephony system was to be put in place before the end of July 2016.  It was hoped that the new telephony system, coupled with the adopted Service Action Plan, would lead to improvements in this performance measure.  To monitor the effectiveness of these measures, the Committee requested that it receive a progress update on the Contact Centre at its meeting on 8 November 2016.

Members recognised that the key to reducing the number of calls into the Contact Centre was to promote the benefits of channel shift.  However, Members also appreciated that the current Council website was a barrier to channel shift and until it was faster and more user friendly there was little merit in actively promoting its benefits;

(e)    improvements in the Development Management service area.  Members commented that they were noticing improvements in the Development Management service and welcomed this trend.  As a further positive, a Member also wished to record the excellent service provided by the Democratic Services team;

(f)     performance measures that could be impacted by other partner organisations (for example the Citizens Advice Bureau).  A Member questioned whether reference in relevant performance measures should be made to other organisations.  In reply, officers confirmed that they would look into this outside of the meeting, but did warn against double entries of similar information;

(g)    the importance of staff welfare.  The Head of Paid Service shared Member concerns over staff welfare and the huge pressure that the organisation was currently under and emphasised how important he considered staff welfare to be.  Related to this point, the Head of Paid Service was also concerned at the long term sickness absence performance measure and felt that it would be helpful to have a detailed look at the data underpinning this indicator.

It was then:

           RESOLVED

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

2.      That Members have reviewed the performance dashboards (as detailed in Section 5 of the presented agenda report) and have provided feedback as outlined in the minutes above.