Agenda item

The Leader of the Council and the Director of Finance and Support Services submitted a report that detailed the performance information based upon all the indicators that were monitored by the Authority.  The purpose of the report was to inform Members of the performance outturns for 2014/15.

The Head of Business Development advised that the Authority utilised priorities, actions and performance indicators to measure progress and report to Scrutiny and make recommendations to the Executive. 

The Corporate Planning and Performance Manager referred Members to paragraph 2.1 for the red, amber and green (RAG) status analysis in respect of the 63 East Herts Performance Indicators (EHPIs) for 2014/15.  Page 41 of the report set out the reasons why a number of EHPIs were off target and more detailed feedback would be reported to Scrutiny via the regular health check reports.

Members were advised that there were 11 indicators for 2014/15 that did not currently have targets as they were either new or were trend only measures.  The Committee was advised that performance for 13 indicators had improved.  However, 13 indicators showed a decline in performance when compared to the previous year, although most of these were still performing in the green category.

The Corporate Planning and Performance Manager concluded that targets were generally being met.  However, the direction of travel showed there were a number of indicators which had a long term declining trend which could put them at risk of being off target in the future.  Members were referred to Essential Reference Papers ‘C’ and ‘D’ of the report submitted for data quality spot check information and benchmarking data.

In response to comments from Councillor J Wyllie regarding EHPI 64, the Director of Finance and Support Services referred to the potential positive impact on the New Homes Bonus of returning vacant dwellings to occupation.  She undertook to reissue an article on that topic that had been circulated via the MIB towards the end of 2014/15 civic year.

The Director undertook to make the Director of Neighbourhood Services and the Executive Member for Development Management and Council Support aware of the views of Corporate Business Scrutiny regarding the percentages of affordable housing currently being included in planning applications.  The Director advised caution in that planning applications were determined by the Development Management Committee and it was not within the remit of this Scrutiny Committee to question those decisions.

Councillor M Pope expressed concerns regarding EHPI 181 and the outturn performance.  The Director reminded Members that the 2014/15 target was 10 days and the outturn had been achieved based on the time taken to process housing benefit new claims and change events.  Members were advised that this was calendar days so weekends and bank holidays reduced the time available for the Officer response.

The Director emphasised that there had been a significant increase in resources to cope with the significant increase in workload.  The number of times Officers were being contacted per case was increasing as was the number of times each claimant was contacting Officers due to a change in their circumstances.

The Committee received the report.

RESOLVED – that the 2014/15 Performance Indicator Outturns report be received.