Agenda item

To consider a report (copy attached) by the Strategic Planning Team Manager seeking the Committee to review the Council’s performance in delivering the intended outcomes of the Corporate Plan.  The report also informs Members on Denbighshire’s performance during 2015-16 compared with that of other authorities.

3pm – 3.30pm

Introducing the report on the Council’s performance in delivering its Corporate Plan during the first quarter of the 2016/17 financial year (previously circulated) the Lead Member for Finance, Corporate Plan and Performance informed the Committee that performance to date was good overall, with only one outcome, the one in relation to educational attainment, not being met. 

There had been improved performance in a range of measures relating to the corporate priority of ‘ensuring access to good quality housing’ i.e. performance in delivering Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs) – Denbighshire was now the best performing Council in Wales for this Performance Indicator (PI).  Performance in relation to the ‘number of calendar days taken to let empty properties (council housing stock only)’ was still being monitored.  However, Scrutiny had already satisfied itself that there were valid reasons for not meeting this national target.  The Committee at an earlier meeting had endorsed the Service’s approach in this area, of refurbishing houses to a high quality before re-letting, as they were of the view that this delivered better long-term outcomes for residents. 

Data in relation to carbon emissions was now available, and whilst carbon emissions from the Council’s office buildings was reducing, it had increased in schools.  Work was now underway to try and improve performance in this area. 

Attached to the report was an appendix: the Local Government Data Unit (Wales) Local Government Performance Bulletin for 2015-16.  This report illustrated Denbighshire’s performance in comparison to all authorities in Wales in relation to the statutory Performance Indicators (KPIs).  Denbighshire was in the top quartile for 18 of the KPIs and in the bottom quartile for 7KPIs.  Performance against the remaining 15 KPIs was either in the upper middle quartile or the lower middle quartile.  The Lead Member emphasised that a decline in performance for a particular indicator did not necessarily mean that the Council was performing badly, just that there had been a slight decline in comparison to previous years e.g. sickness absence.  The Data Unit’s analysis of relative performance across Wales for 2015-16 ranked Denbighshire third best performing authority in relation to having the most indicators in the top quartile.  Responding to members’ questions and observations the Lead Member and officers:

·       confirmed that initially all public buildings would be radon tested.  Only Council housing in the areas identified on radon maps as ‘risk areas’ would be required to be tested.  If all Council owned accommodation was required in due course to be radon tested then there would be substantial cost implications for the authority;

·       acknowledged that the nature of data reported from surveys tended to just state raw data – it did not quantify or justify the reasons behind the performance or the work underway to address declining or poor performance;

·       in the current Corporate Plan the Council had chosen ‘improving performance in education and the quality of our school buildings’ as one of its corporate priorities, with the latter element of the priority focussing on building new schools/school facilities.  Looking ahead to the new Council and its Corporate Plan it may wish to focus on improving all schools across Denbighshire and not concentrate on a small number of school projects; and

·       confirmed that the Council had set itself a very ambitious target for sickness absences, one that was comparable to private sector industries, hence the reason it was registering ‘amber’ for its performance in this area.  No other local authority in Wales had yet met the target set by Denbighshire.

At the conclusion of the discussion the Committee:

RESOLVED subject to the above observations to receive the report on the Council’s performance in delivering its Corporate Plan during Quarter 1 of the 2016/17 year, and note the County’s performance in relation to the National Strategic Indicators (NSIs) and Public Accountability Measures (PAMs) for 2015/16