Agenda item

Committee work programme including Quarter 2 Performance Monitoring report.

The Insights and Transformation Manager present the report advising it was in the same format as Q1 with all performance information tabled relating to both Scrutiny committees.  A brief summary was provided prior to committee comments:

Housing and Wellbeing was better than target in respect of the number of properties improved through Council intervention.  However the percentage of cases opened at homelessness prevention stage was below target but a lot of new work and new measures were now in place.  The number of verified sleeps was worse than target but it was an aspirational target which the Council aimed to achieve.

The percentage of Alliance workforce who said 'yes' when asked if they felt valued at work was still below target however there was a marked improvement from the Q1 return (61.58%) to the Q2 return (73.03%). Increased liaison with those members of the workforce who did not feel valued continues to take place and the alliance would look to gather staff engagement data from other local authorities to benchmark its’ own results.

Due to pending agreement from the Waste Disposal Authority in relation to changes in how recycling performance is measured, no data was available. However, the percentage of fly-tips collected within 3 working days of being reported was above target.

Whilst all planning was below target, the local performance measures did exceed the national minimum requirement as they did not include agreed time extensions. In addition, the ongoing changes and general workloads within the service did impact on performance in the short term. Major applications commonly are those which require negotiations, amendments, Committee decisions or legal agreements. The Council may revert to national targets.

The percentage of food premises inspections completed against the Food Standards Agency annual inspection plan were within tolerance. With the exception of a small number of fishing vessels which could not be inspected owing to the seasonal nature of their business, Boston was undertaking its food safety inspection programme as it did before the start of the pandemic. Unlike most, if not all, other local authorities, Boston has not had to implement the Food Standards Agency (FSA) recovery plan to retrieve the food safety inspection programme to where it was before the pandemic. As such the food safety inspections will be reported in the same way as before the service was disrupted by the pandemic, rather than against the FSA Recovery Plan.

The time to process new Benefit claims was below target which had been hampered by balancing high workloads and resources, including the diversion of experienced resources to deliver Test and Trace along with work required to clear the backlog of un processed records that accumulated prior to PSPS taking over the service.

The NDR collection rate was below target, but comparisons with targets and previous years are not valid, as the partial removal of Covid related reliefs part way through the year has meant that the liability is not distributed evenly throughout the year and is weighted towards the end of the year. A more accurate measure of performance would be available for in Q4.

Member comment and questioning followed which included:

Referencing the recent Member Working Group in respect of housing standards committee were asked to agree a way forward and their preference of which option of scrutiny.  Committee agreed that a Task and Finish Group be convened. 

Address the performance of the markets Members voiced concern at the continued low attendance of traders and the ongoing loss of reputation of the market as a destination.  Concern was also noted on the detrimental impact Stickney Car Boot continued to have on Boston’s market. It appeared that whilst Boston’s charter which did not permit car boots on the market, East Lindsey District Councils charter did permit traders on a car boot event and had taken a number of Boston’s Saturday traders, reducing the stalls on the weekend market. Referencing the alliance, Members felt that East Lindsey District Council should be made aware of the detriment their car boot had caused on the established Saturday market and further impact on other business in the town from visitors to the market.  In addition it was felt that in line with the alliance there would be officers from the other authorities with experience of markets who could input into the future of Boston’s market. 

Committee agreed that a Member briefing be scheduled in the first instance to see the current position and the intentions to grow the market.

The chairman thanked Members for their attendance and closed the meeting.