Meeting documents
Cabinet
Wednesday, 12th July, 2006
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Bath & North East Somerset Council |
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MEETING: |
Council Executive |
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DATE: |
On 12 July 2006 |
PAPER NUMBER |
17 |
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TITLE: |
Council Performance Report for January to June 2006 |
EXECUTIVE FORWARD PLAN REFERENCE: |
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EWP |
01369 |
PU |
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WARD: |
All |
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List of attachments to this report: Appendix 1 - Council Performance Report |
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1 THE ISSUE
1.1 Council Performance Report by Executive Portfolio for periods January to June 2006
2 RECOMMENDATION
The Council Executive is asked to agree that:
2.1 The Council Executive is asked to note the contents of this report and consider whether additional actions are required to improve performance
3
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
3.1 Contained within the report
4 THE REPORT
4.1 The Executive has received 4 monthly Performance reports on cross council topics for some years, plus a 6 monthly Council Performance report. We have now introduced a new Performance Monitoring System which enables more flexible web-based analysis of performance across the Council. The report enclosed in the Appendix is the 4th public report for 2005/06 from the new system.
4.2 We have taken the opportunity to simplify the performance report in order to make it more easily understood. The system allows a variety of different analyses, for instance we are producing reports designed for each Overview & Scrutiny Panel. The layout and form will change for 2006/07 performance.
4.3 The report contains a report on progress, by Executive portfolio, including performance indicators published in the Council's Performance Plan. This replaces the 4 monthly performance reports.
4.4 The report includes a summary, by portfolio, of key achievements and issues for the period Sept - Jan 2006, plus an accompanying summary of the progress against performance targets, showing whether we are achieving target to date (`green', `amber' or `red') and whether we are improving or deteriorating since the previous quarter( < or ® )
4.5 The overall performance of the Council was confirmed as good by the Audit Commission with a 3 star rating (out of a possible 4). The Council continues to make good progress against improvement priorities and maintain improvements in already high performing services such as recycling and raising education standards as well as generally improving the value for money of its services.
4.6 In 2005/06 56% of targets were achieved against national performance indicators. This is an improvement on previous years of 55% in 2004/5 and 53% in 2003/4. 53% of our national indicators are improving with a further 12% remaining the same (half of these are at 100% and are already performing at the highest level).
4.7 The Council's first Annual Efficiency Statement was submitted to Government showing over-achievement against our financial savings target. Although this was the first such submission, we have featured similar efficiency schemes in our financial and corporate planning since the late 1990s highlighting service savings and reallocation of resources to priority areas. In addition, the Council continues to restrict increases in Council Tax to below the national average.
4.8 The last year has not been without its difficulties, and poor performance continued to be seen in the Revenues and Benefits service which had substantial backlogs of work causing error and delay to one of the Council's most important front line services. Additional funding was voted by Council in February 2005 to provide additional resources to improve the situation, and whilst these improvements have taken a substantial time to achieve, the service is now responding well and expectations are for better results on a sustained basis from now on.
4.9 In addition, the level of exclusion from school remains a concern. Although action has been taken to address this, including undertaking a review of behaviour provision, planned closure of Wansdyke School and opening a new special school (The Link Centre), it is too early to measure the impact of this.
4.10 Latest achievements are included in the body of the report with a reminder of some key achievements that have been reported throughout the year summarised below:
B7 Best ever pupil performance in our schools with B&NES being ranked 11th out of 150 for higher grade GCSE's
B7 Our annual performance assessment on education and social care services in July 2005 found that overall children's services in Bath and North East Somerset are consistently delivering above minimum requirements for children and young people and that the council's capacity to improve its services is good.
B7 Other external reviews & inspections have been carried out on Adult Services, Social Care Services and the Supporting People Programme and all have demonstrated good performance by the Council. Adult Services were judged to be serving some people well and to have promising capacity for improvement, the Social Care inspection reported that foster care services in Bath & North East Somerset Council exceeded or met 31 of the 32 national standards and the inspection of the Supporting People programme assessed Bath and North East Somerset Council as providing a `good' service that has promising prospects for improvement
B7 A refurbished Bath Central library was opened to include first stop services as part of increasing customer access to council services
B7 New primary schools were opened in Radstock giving a real boost to the community
B7 The number of households in Bed and Breakfast fell as low as 2 in early December 2005 compared to an all time high of more than 60 in 2003
B7 Bath won the South West Britain in Bloom award for the 6th successive year with MSN winning a silver medal for the first time
B7 A joint concessionary travel scheme was delivered with neighbouring councils to allow free travel for the elderly and disabled from April 2006.
B7 Bath & North East Somerset along with other neighbouring councils were awarded A31.5m to investigate ways of tackling traffic congestion.
5 RISK MANAGEMENT
5.1 The report author and Decision maker have fully reviewed the risk assessment related to the issue and recommendations, in compliance with the Council's decision making risk management guidance.
6 RATIONALE
6.1 This report is a key part of the Council's performance management framework
7 OTHER OPTIONS CONSIDERED
7.1 The new system allows for a wide range of flexible reporting analyses. The report proposed is our preferred public report as we believe it explains progress against complex targets in a simple fashion.
8
CONSULTATION
8.1 We have consulted Executive Councillor with responsibility for Performance, other Executive Members, Section 151 Finance Officer, Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer
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Contact person |
Dave Thompson - 01225 394368 |
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Background papers |
None |