Agenda item

Report attached.

The report before members detailed a graphical illustration of trends over 2012/13 and 2013/14 for the Council’s corporate performance indicators that related to the Value Goal in the Corporate Plan.

At the Committee meeting on 28 November 2013, Members received the Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 Corporate Performance Reports, which had been to Cabinet in September and November 2013. Those reports provided a snapshot of performance in time. Members asked if more detail could be provided for the Value corporate performance indicators, in the form of actual numbers, trend and benchmarking data. The appendix to the report contained such information.

All benchmarking data had been sourced from London Authority Performance Solution (LAPS) data. Facilitated by London Councils, the LAPS project aimed to share, compare and analyse local performance data collected by London Boroughs on a quarterly basis.  This data was provided on a voluntarily basis, with a proviso that the data was made available for internal use only and was not published. To ensure the benchmarking data was as meaningful as possible, Havering’s statistical nearest neighbour according to the Office for National Statistics (Bexley) and the Council’s geographical nearest neighbours (Redbridge, Barking & Dagenham and Newham) had been highlighted.

The latest benchmarking data for Quarter 2 2013/14 had been used, except for the Council Tax and NNDR collection rates where Q4 2012/13 provided a more meaningful end-of-year comparison; and speed of processing new Housing Benefit only claimants and speed of processing changes in circumstances of Housing Benefit only claimants where Q1 2013/14 was the latest comparative data (as it was always a quarter behind).

It was important to note that since the abolition of the National Indicator Set in 2010, most performance indicators were collected on a local basis and therefore methodologies may have differed slightly.

In reply to a question regarding Council Tax payments officers confirmed that approximately 60% of Council tax was collected by Direct Debit/Standing Order. Officers also confirmed that approximately 2-3% of customers chose to pay their Council tax over twelve months as opposed to ten months.

Officers also confirmed that fraud measures were in place to dissuade occupiers with properties that were in multiple occupation from claiming Single Resident Discount on their Council Tax bills.

Members noted that there had been an improvement in the NNDR collection rate since the service had been brought back in-house from the London Borough of barking and Dagenham.

Officers explained that when the shared services platform was introduced later in the year that both local authorities would be running separate software packages to deal with Housing Benefit and Council Tax claims. Contract end periods for the separate software packages had been factored into potential savings figures when the One Source proposal was being considered.

In reply to a question relating to the percentage of Member/MP enquiries that were completed within the 10 day target, officers advised that StreetCare was the service with the highest number of enquiries and that residents were now being encouraged to self-report enquiries via the reporting portal on the Council’s website. Members suggested that an update on the self reporting portal would be useful in the future once the service had had time to embed.

Members noted that ensuring customer satisfaction was a high priority for the Council.  In 2012/13, the performance for the Call Centre (telephony) was being monitored, however in 2013/14 this had been extended to the Contact Centre as a whole.  This included not only the Call Centre but also the PASC (the face-to-face) service combined.  The target had been increased to 85% for this financial year (2013/14) which was a high target compared to other authorities.