Decision details

Councillor Clarence Barrett presented the report of Pippa Brent-Isherwood, Assistant Director of Policy Performance and Community, to Cabinet, setting out the Quarter 3 Performance against each of the Council’s Corporate Strategic Goals: Clean, Safe and Proud.

Cllr Barrett indicated that a total of 58 Corporate Performance Indicators (CPI’s) had been included in the report.  35 of these are either statutory or reported to MOPAC and 23 are local performance indicators.  55 have been given a RAG (red, amber, green) status and a summary of these appears at paragraph 6 of the report. 73% have a green status and 27% have red or amber which represents a slight improvement on Quarter 2.

It was noted that the levels of performance must be interpreted in the context of increasing demand on services across the Council and this is illustrated in the Demand Pressure Dashboard at appendix 2 of the report.

The way that performance indicators are dealt with is set to change with a more outcomes focused approach being developed.  In line with the new Vision for Havering Council, the new CPI’s will be closely aligned to transformation plans and strategies.  In addition, from 2017/18, Corporate Performance Reports are to be reported only to the Overview and Scrutiny Board (on a quarterly basis) and Cabinet.  The reports will be made available simultaneously to the Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Sub Committees.  Target tolerances and the RAG status will be removed from the reports.

Councillor Barrett detailed the highlights of the report against each of the Council’s priorities, in particular;

CLEAN

·       the number of days to remove fly tips which has improved now being within the target tolerance

·       The number of volunteers participating in community clean ups; and

·       The percentage of Planning Appeals allowed which is better than this time next year.

Consideration was also given to areas needing improvement;

·       The percentage of major applications processed within 13 weeks is below target; and

·       The provisional levy waste tonnage in the latest data available, demonstrates that this will be above target and will therefore have a financial implication for the Council.  Notwithstanding this a number of campaigns are ongoing to help reduce this figure.

SAFE

Highlights:

·       The rate of delayed transfers of care attributable to Adult Social Care is below target (where smaller is better);

·       100% of carers are receiving their support through self-direction via direct payment.  This represents 1,775 service users with an increase of 23% on the same time last year

·       The percentage of adults in contact with secondary mental health services who are living independently is significantly above target.

Areas needing improvement:

·       The percentage of LAC placed in LBH foster care is below target and this year so far only 4 new in house foster carers have been recruited.  This is being addressed by a recruitment campaign

·       The number of Total Notifiable Offences recorded for this financial year has increased.

·       The rate of permanent admissions to residential and nursing care homes is above target.

PROUD

Highlights:

·       Out of 8,784, only 70 properties were identified at a non-decent standard.  This is above target and performing better than last year;

·       The amount of Early Years providers judged “Good” or “Outstanding” has increased and is better than both last quarter and this time last year;

·       The percentage of adults in contact with secondary mental health services in paid employment is better than target;

·       The number of volunteers helping to run the library service continues to grow and is above target this quarter.

In need of improvement:

·       Housing repairs completed on time are below target;

·       Start-up businesses accessing advice through the Business Start-up Programme is below target

·       The current average sickness absence rate across the Council is 9.8FTE days per employee.  This represents the lowest sickness rate in two years but it is still worse than target. A 24/7 Absence Line pilot scheme was launched in October 2016 for Employment and Catering Services and this has been successful in reducing sickness absence.

There then followed a period of discussion.  Councillor David Durant noted the increased costs of waste disposal and asked the Council to look at other means disposal in order to bring costs down. The Leader stated that the Council is currently locked into a contract with ELWA and that plans will be made to ensure this is as cost effective as possible.  This issue will be passed on to the local MP in an effort to shape government policy.

For the reasons set out in the report Cabinet:

1.     Reviewed the performance set out in Appendix 1 of the report and the corrective action that has been and continues to be taken.

2.     Noted the content of the Demand Pressures Dashboard presented in the report at Appendix 2

3.     Approved an amended approach to performance reporting from 2017/18, which will see target tolerances (and therefore RAG ratings) removed from the reports.

There were no other options considered as an alternative to Cabinet considering the Quarter 3 Performance Report as this is considered to be the only way that the London Borough of Havering can ensure that Cabinet Members are kept totally up to date with the Council’s Performance for each of the Strategic Goals.