Agenda and minutes

To enable members of the public to ask questions, express views or present petitions, IF NOTICE HAS BEEN GIVEN, (by telephone, in writing or by email) BY NO LATER THAN 12 NOON OF THE WORKING DAY PRECEDING THE MEETING. As per Procedural Rule 14.4 at any one meeting no person may submit more than 3 questions and no more than 1 such question may be asked on behalf of one organisation.

There was no public participation.

10 August 2023

It was moved by Councillor Nick Whitehead, seconded by Councillor Roger Shelley and

RESOLVED (unanimously)

That the minutes of the meeting of the Scrutiny Committee held on 10 August 2023 be approved as a correct record.

The Chair declared the motion CARRIED.

Members are required to declare the existence and nature of any interests they may have in subsequent agenda items in accordance with the District Council’s Code of Conduct. Those interests are matters that relate to money or that which can be valued in money, affecting the Member, their partner, extended family and close friends. Interests that become apparent at a later stage in the proceedings may be declared at the time.

There were no declarations of interest.

This report summarises the outturn performance against the District Council’s Corporate Plan targets and Key Performance Indicators for the full year 2022/23. The report highlights where services have performed strongly and where improvements can be made. The report also highlights the District Councils performance against waste management and finance metrics recently launched by the Office for Local Government.

The Policy Manager introduced a report summarising the outturn performance against the Council’s Corporate Plan targets and Key Performance Indicators for the full year 2022/23. The report highlighted where services had performed strongly and where improvements could be made. The Council’s performance against waste management and finance metrics recently launched by the Office for Local Government was also detailed.

The current Corporate Plan 2020-24 set out the Council’s priorities and areas for improvement, these priority areas were detailed in the report. The plan identified a number of priority targets relating to the specific activities to be undertaken during the relevant financial year. These targets were assigned annually to specific teams and service areas for action. They set out how the Council would meet its annual Corporate Plan targets. The 26 Corporate Plan actions for 2022/23 were agreed by Council on 3 March 2022. Progress against each action during 2022/23 was set out in Appendix 1.

In addition, there were 12 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that measured the District Council’s general organisational health. They covered service areas such as determining planning applications in good time, paying bills on time, collecting Council Tax efficiently and paying benefits claims promptly. Appendix 2 provided detail on the progress against the KPIs, on a quarter-by-quarter basis, throughout 2022/23.

Table 1 in the report summarised the Corporate Plan actions and KPI results for 22/23. It was noted that 69% of Corporate Plan actions were fully achieved alongside 75% of the Key Performance Indicator targets. Members asked for more detailed information regarding the KPIs for which the outturns for 22/23 were below target. It was noted that these details would be provided to Members to allow them to better understand the information. Members also asked that the results of the staff and resident surveys by integrated into the KPI process in future years and that trend analysis be completed on the historic KPI data. The difficulties in recruitment and retention were also noted as having possible negative effects on performance across the organisation.

It was moved by Councillor Nick Wilton, seconded by Councillor Nick Whitehead and

RESOLVED (unanimously)

1.    That the Outturn performance against Corporate Plan targets for 2022/23 be noted.

2.    That the outturn performance against the Key Performance Indicators for 2022/23 be noted.

3.    That the outturn performance for 2021/22 against the newly launched Office for Local Government finance and waste management metrics be noted.

4.    That bi-annual reports continue to be presented to Members to highlight progress demonstrate good performance, and address areas for improvement.

The Chair declared the motion CARRIED.

The report discusses a series of issues relating to organisational resilience, resources and priorities and outlines potential options for members to consider in order to deliver a package of measures to aid the recruitment and retention of staff to ensure that the Council is adequately resourced to deliver its core services and priorities.

The Chief Executive introduced a report which covered a series of issues relating to organisational resilience, resources and priorities and outlined potential options for Members to consider in order to deliver a package of measures to aid the recruitment and retention of staff, to ensure that the Council would be adequately resourced to deliver its core services and priorities.

It was noted that in the post Covid-19 era, local government faced a series of acute workforce challenges on a scale which had never been experienced.

Members were informed that maintaining sufficient capacity and skills, attractiveness as a career choice, competition from other sectors, flexible working arrangements and the continuous inflationary erosion of pay were all having a severe impact upon the ability of Councils of all types and sizes to attract and maintain staff of the calibre required to deliver high quality services. At the same time, there was a constant need to prioritise corporate projects and initiatives in order to ensure that the organisations resources are aligned to efficient and effective service delivery.

In recent years, Members had regularly considered reports which had looked at Organisational Resilience, Resources and Priorities, this report focussed upon a number of current and future challenges faced by the organisation, these were listed in the report. Section 10 of the report outlined the proposed options to enhance recruitment and retention.

It was moved by Councillor Nick Whitehead, seconded by Councillor Nick Wilton and

RESOLVED (unanimously)

1.    That all of the options to enhance recruitment and retention as outlined in the report (Section 10) be developed by officers for further detailed consideration.

2.    That the views of the Scrutiny Committee be taken into consideration in the development of further options and proposals presented to Council for approval.

The Chair declared the motion CARRIED.

To receive and approve the updated Scrutiny Committee Work Programme for 2023/24 and to debate the proposed Terms of Reference for scrutiny of the advice provided by the Lead Local Flood Authority to the District Council.

Councillor David Hughes introduced the updated Scrutiny Committee work programme for 2023/24.

Members asked that the process by which Section 106 agreements are negotiated for large developments be added to the work programme to be investigated. It was noted that a briefing would be provided by the Development Manager and that following the briefing, this could be considered as a possible topic for scrutiny.

The Committee asked that the Overview of Information Systems be integrated into the Consultation and Engagement project due to foreseen overlap. It was also requested by the Chair that scrutiny of the Lead Local Flood Authority’s advice be brought forward, with a report to be brought to the next meeting regarding the legal responsibilities and information relating to the problems which have arisen. Members also asked that consideration of the Waste Collection Contract be postponed allowing for the changes resulting from round optimisation to be fully implemented.

It was moved by Councillor Nick Wilton, seconded by Councillor Nick Whitehead and

RESOLVED (unanimously)

1.    That the updated work programme for 2023/24 be approved subject to the changes as proposed by the Committee.

2.    That the terms of reference for the scrutiny of the advice of the Lead Local Flood Authority be approved.

3.    That draft terms of reference be produced for the waste collection contract and consultation and engagement projects, and that these be presented to a future meeting of the Committee for approval.

The Chair declared the motion CARRIED.