Issue - decisions

This report presented details of the Council’s performance for the first quarter of 2010/2011. In particular it included performance against indicators and actions agreed in the Council Plan 2010/2011.

It was noted that of the 45 key measures that could be reported this quarter 22 (49%) had achieved or outperformed the annual target and a further 9 (20%) were below target but within acceptable variance limits. 14 (31%) key measures were below the annual target.

In addition, the report set out a number of proposed amendments to the Council Plan in light of changes to some inspection regimes and in-year budget reductions agreed by Council on 29 July 2010. It also set out the targets for approval for the measures of success in the Council Plan used to track delivery of the Council’s priorities.

Reasons:

Full and accurate performance reporting to Members is consistent with best practice, and allows Members to review the Council’s performance.

Discussion:

The Performance Manager gave an overview on progress made during quarter one (April – June 2010), advising that the report also showed proposed changes to the Council Plan.

The committee was informed that it was unusual to suggest in-year changes to the Council Plan but this was in order to keep the plan consistent with recent changes brought in by the coalition government. Officers had also taken the opportunity to re-visit the actions and indicators reported in the plan and those highlighted in yellow in Appendix 2 were proposed for removal from the Council Plan.

Members were advised that the Cabinet had recently agreed that certain actions and measures highlighted in yellow could remain in the Council Plan for the remainder of the financial year.

The committee asked if the council had been officially notified by the government about the withdrawal of funding from the Playbuilders scheme and was advised that a letter had been received which asked the council to put this scheme on hold. To date, nothing further had been received.

Members also asked for an explanation of the difference between the indicator on page 376 of the agenda (Carry out a programme of test purchases of age restricted products including knives, solvents and alcohol) and the indicator on page 377 of the agenda (Test purchase operations to be run to ensure alcohol is not sold to under 18s) and questioned why the first indicator was proposed to be removed rather than the second, as the first indicator on page 376 encompassed all products rather than a specific one. The Director of Regeneration, Community and Culture agreed that this should be amended.

Members expressed some concern that it had taken so long for the Quarter 1 performance monitoring information to be presented to the Committee. Officers were asked to consider how the reporting cycle for performance monitoring information could be changed in future to achieve more timely reporting of this information to Overview and Scrutiny Committees. 

Decision:

The committee agreed to:

(a)               note the two stage process outlined at section 3.6 of the report for reviewing the Council Plan to ensure it responded to the national abolition of CAA and accurately reflected the council’s priorities and targets whilst taking into account resources to deliver them;

(b)               note the targets for performance indicators included within appendix 2;

(c)               recommend to Council on 14 October 2010 the changes to the Council Plan actions and measures highlighted in Appendix 2, with the exception of the following actions which it recommended should be amended for the remainder of the reporting year, as follows:

Action – ‘Carry out a programme of test purchases of age restricted products including knives, solvents and alcohol’ should be retained for the remainder of the reporting year, and

Action – ‘Test purchase operations to be run to ensure alcohol is not sold to under 18s’ should be removed from the Council Plan.