Agenda item

This report presents the Council performance for the third quarter of 2011-2012. In particular, it includes performance against indicators and actions agreed in the Council Plan. 

Discussion:

The Performance Manager introduced the report advising that it allowed Members to monitor the progress of the Regeneration, Community and Culture Directorate for quarter 3 (October to December 2011) in achieving the outcomes agreed in the Council Plan. Following feedback and review, corporate performance reporting had been simplified and would no longer include a lengthy narrative report.

For the Council Plan performance, 36 key performance indicator measures of success could be rated:

Green – 24 measures have achieved or outperformed the target (67%)

Amber – 3 measures are below target but within acceptable variance limits (8%)

Red – 4 measures are outside acceptable variance limits (11%)

There were 4 performance measures which were not rated as they were ‘data only’ and 1 that could not be reported this quarter but had been included for information.

The highlights for quarter 2 included:

·        efforts to reduce unemployment in Medway had continued with 50 apprenticeships created this quarter, which meant that in three months 50 local people had been able to find apprenticeships of 12-18 months duration with local small businesses for the first time

·        Love Medway developments this quarter included advertising the Love Medway campaign on the fire engines from Gillingham Fire Station and a Community Champion scheme had been set up at St Mary's school, pupils, elected by their peers, would use the website to report issues they or other pupils had seen

·        satisfaction with buses and road and pavement maintenance remained above target

·        the opening of Chatham Waterfront bus station and closure of the Pentagon bus station had significantly improved the quality of bus services

·        Leisure services had achieved the Customer Service Excellence accreditation.

Areas requiring development included:

·        results from the latest tracker survey showed a small dip in satisfaction with the Community Officers. A focus group had been held in December 2011 where specific questions were posed to try and establish the reason for the low satisfaction scores.  Although the full details had not yet been received, the headlines were as follows:

·         only a few respondents were aware of the community officers work

·         the awareness of service provision included work not undertaken by community officers around anti-social behaviour and Alcohol Control Zones enforcement

·         the group felt, as a whole, the services provided were very worthwhile. However, there was a feeling that the service was under promoted and there was a lack of awareness on how to contact the service

·         The Black Minority Ethnic (BME) respondents’ awareness of the service was even lower, although they were positive about the service provided.  They suggested the use of social media to promote the service and take positive actions with the various BME groups to increase awareness

·         it was clear that respondents confused community officers with PCSOs and thought would be given about how the service was made distinct as well as how to raise awareness.  The current tracker survey question was not helpful and only served to confuse respondents.

·        the percentage of household waste sent for reuse, recycling and composting – although during quarter 3 showed a result under target of 40%, the council was on target for the year.  During quarter 3 there was a drop in the recycling rate as it is a seasonal trend as the growing season had ended

·        the performance had dropped in the indicator ‘% of people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality’ from 36% in quarter 1 to 30% in quarter 3.  The Council had been successful in securing funding from the EU and Big Lottery Fund in order to assist social regeneration and disadvantaged neighbourhood’s projects.  In all cases these projects would require work with community groups and residents or the setting up of community panels in order to decide specific priorities for project delivery.  These initiatives should help to strengthen the participation and increase the percentage.

Members commented that the final indicator (% of people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality) target of 32% was an appalling vision for the council, especially as this was about resident’s perception of their influence. The projects mentioned above related to Chatham, so would only impact on that area and so what was being done more generally to raise this perception across the whole of Medway? Officers responded that the tracker results were from a cross-section of residents across Medway and a telephone interview of 400 residents also covered the whole of Medway. However, officers agreed to look into this further and re-visit the reasons underpinning this indicator.

With regard to the indicator ‘% of people who think Medway Council helps people travel easily around Medway’, Members commented that the council had set the standard too low if it thought that 52% of people satisfied with this indicator was reasonable.

Members commented that they did not find the data provided useful, as there was no value to compare against in 2010 and no comparison data to other Local Authorities for Members to assess. The Assistant Director, Front Line Services, advised that the national framework of indicators was removed 18 months ago, which made comparison with other authorities hard and there was a lack of trend analysis data as much of the data had changed. Some indicators that the council used did not feature in the Council Plan but would feature in directorate or individual Assistant Director plans.

The committee discussed whether it would be useful to be given the questions asked that related to each indicator and the weight given on the validity of the answers. Members also believed that a telephone survey might not be the best way to achieve the information requested from residents. Members requested a Briefing Note on this matter.

Decision:

The committee agreed to:

(a)   note the outcomes achieved against the priorities in the Council Plan;

(b)   request that further in-depth information and analysis is provided in a future report on the following areas:

·        NI4 - % of people who think they can influence decisions in their locality

·        IT2 - % of people who think Medway Council helps people travel easily around Medway

·        LRCC4 – number of jobs created and safeguarded;

(c)  request a Briefing Note detailing the various surveys used to support the results for the Council Plan indicators and also including information on the demographics of who is asked, the questions set and the weight given on the validity of the answer.