Agenda item

Report of the Interim Corporate Improvement Manager attached.

The Committee considered the report of the Interim Corporate Improvement

Manager which provided an overview of performance against the Council’s

Corporate Plan 2017/18 for the third quarter ending at the end of December 2017.  This also included details of the corporate risks and controls in place to mitigate risks in the Corporate Risk Register.

The report set out the details of the 34 performance indicators and 27 corporate plan activities and a commentary on the performance made against each indicator and activity. Also for the first time the report included at Appendix 2, the performance of the Council’s current services shared with Chorley Borough Council.

During the discussion, the Committee’s comments/enquiries included the following areas:

·         health and safety (accident reporting) – there had been one reportable accident in Quarter 3, and health and safety was a standing item at Leadership Team meetings

·         increased number of complaints received by the Council – it was felt that following the recent adoption of the Council’s Customer Feedback Policy more complaints (rather than requests for service) were being captured.  However, this did not include the category of complaint

·         housing framework (extra care funding) – the funding from the County Council had stopped and rather than just looking to replace this, South Ribble Council was exploring other ways to provide those facilities in the borough

·         improve the empty property target – whilst not a large issue in South Ribble the revised/refreshed housing framework had been approved with priorities and projects which included reducing the number of empty properties

·         property and investment performance – whilst acknowledging this was disappointing, steps had been taken which included the adoption of the new Investment Strategy, including this as a priority in the Council’s new Corporate Plan, and other types of investment such as commercialisation of the Civic Suite and Worden Park

·         delivery of the Leyland, Lostock Hall and Penwortham Masterplans – it was understood these plans had been adopted by City Deal and had been included in Year 1 of the Council’s new Corporate Plan

·         explanation of the shared services performance information – it was understood the figures related to projected and actual allocation of work but the reason(s) why South Ribble’s performance figures were red was not available at the meeting

·         environmental management  risk – initially it  was thought that there would be an impact on frontline staff due to reduced funding.  However, this had been mitigated with a new business model, management re-structure and proposed changes to shared services

·         welfare reform – pockets of deprivation had been identified in the Council’s new Corporate Plan and the aim was to do what it could to reduce the level of deprivation  

RESOLVED (Unanimously):

That the Committee expresses the following comments for consideration by the Cabinet whilst considering this item on 1 March 2018, that

(a)  in respect of complaints received it would be helpful if these were categorised and indicate how lessons have been learned;

(b)  the Committee strongly requests that it is kept informed with clear timelines on the delivery of the master plans for Leyland, Lostock Hall and Penwortham; and

(c)    future reports on shared service performance provide more explanation on the performance figures, including differences between those for Chorley and South Ribble councils.