Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 Council Performance Report by Executive Portfolio for the period January to April 07.

1.2 Following introduction of a new performance management system in 2005, this is the second year that the Executive has received quarterly performance reports showing performance against each Executive portfolio.

1.3 This report shows each former Executive member's performance divided into a narrative section and a section listing performance progress against all national Best Value performance indicators and key local performance indicators. These are the indicators that are published in the annual Best Value Performance Plan (BVPP). This section also highlights indicators that the former Executive members and Directors agreed require focus as "key" indicators by listing them at the beginning of each portfolio & also using the word "Key" in their name.

1.4 The report includes a summary, by portfolio, of key achievements, issues, finance and risk for the period January - April 2007, plus an accompanying summary of the progress against performance targets. As this is our end of year report, performance for quarter four only shows `green' for those targets that we have achieved or `red' for any targets that we have missed (i.e. no ambers) and shows whether we are improving or deteriorating since the previous quarter( < or ® ).

1.5 In 2007/08 the report format will reflect the new cabinet arrangements:

(1) Leader of the Council

(2) Resources

(3) Adult Social Service and Housing

(4) Economic Development and Major Projects

(5) Customer Service

(6) Children Services

2 RECOMMENDATION

2.1 Note the contents of this final report for 06/07 performance and to consider in light of the corrective actions identified whether additional actions are required to improve performance in 07/08.

3 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3.1 The financial performance of the Council in 2006/07 can be found at the next item on the agenda of the Cabinet.

3.2 In broad terms

(1) The Council achieved its budget in 2006/07 with a small surplus (before carry forwards) managing some difficult in-year pressures with savings in capital financing costs and increased investment income.

(2) The overall outturn shows a surplus of £1.4m before carry forwards into 2007-08) once £1.1m of Local Authority Business Growth Incentive grant is taken into account.

(3) There are significant variations within services some of which may materialise into continuing pressures in 2007-08.

(4) Spending on the capital programme was £10m under budget - just over 80% of the planned capital spending was achieved.

(5) General Fund reserve levels are on target compared to the targets set in the budget in February 2007. The Council's continued progress towards achieving the £9m target by 2010 will depend on financial performance in the intervening years.

3.3 As a result of the 2006/07 financial performance the following actions are planned:

(1) Action plans to address pressures in 2006-07 that continue in 2007-08.

(2) Action plans and monitoring to address 2007-08 planned savings.

(3) Director's refreshing their reviews of the robustness of their budgets made in February 2007.

(4) Reappraisal of the Council's adequacy of its reserves as a result of the above and monthly review of those reserves (or more frequently of risks are known to have changed).

(5) Improved monitoring in "high risk budgets" to link financial information, activity information and service managers experience of service demand.

(6) More details can be found in the next item on the Cabinet's agenda.

4 COMMUNITY STRATEGY OUTCOMES

5 CORPORATE IMPROVEMENT PRIORITIES

6 CPA LINES OF ENQUIRY

o Sustainable Communities and Transport

o Safer and Stronger Communities

o Healthier Communities

7 THE REPORT

7.1 We are a three star council and now improving well. This is the verdict of the government's Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) in their annual judgement of all councils.

7.2 In 2006/07 we have improved the number of targets that have been achieved by 8% achieving 64% of all of our targets. This is an improvement on previous years of 56% in 2005/06, 55% in 2004/05 and 53% in 2003/04. There is also an increase on the percentage of indicators that improved or stayed the same - 79% this year in comparison with 65% in 05/06.

7.3 Performance against the indicators that we have identified as "key" shows over 53% hit target. A separate exercise has been undertaken with Strategic Directors to review performance indicators identified as key for reporting in 2007/08.

7.4 The Council has had some great achievements this year (highlights of which follow in the next section), but there have been some things that we planned to do and didn't achieve:

(1) Establishment of the Domiciliary Care & Re-enablement Service was not achieved in 06/07 as originally planned. This will now happen in 07/08 and in conjunction with reconfiguration of Older People's community services jointly with the Primary Care Trust.

(2) Planning permissions associated with Lambridge Park & Ride were not completed

(3) Customer satisfaction levels with waste and cleansing were adversely affected by changes in collection methods at the time of survey

(4) We did not achieve all of our targets to process Planning applications on time and satisfaction levels declined

(5) Library customers continued to decline

(6) While the Council has high levels of attendance in its schools, we did not achieve reductions in non attendance to the levels anticipated. Support to schools has been reviewed and there is emerging evidence that attendance levels are now increasing

7.5 Latest achievements are included in the body of the report.

8 As part of year end reporting below are highlights that have been reported through the year shown by the Council's Improvement Priorities:

8.1 Improving the Environment for learning

(1) We achieved an all time high ranking of 11^th out of 150 local authorities in the 2006 national performance tables and were the 4^th highest authority for maths performance at key stage 2. Our GCSE results have continued to improve, increasing from 60% getting 5 A* to C in 2004 to 65% in 2005 and an excellent 68% in 2006.

(2) We opened the St Martin's Garden Children's Centre - a brand-new purpose built children's centre offering full time nursery care for children from 0-5 and groups and activities for communities across Bath, and a new £1.4m sports hall was completed at Norton Hill School providing not only a splendid asset for the school but a valuable resource for the whole community.

(3) We were awarded £25.8m to completely renew one of our secondary schools - Writhlington Secondary School has been chosen for this work and architects are now preparing plans for this new school and in January 2007 building work started on St Keyna's School in Keynsham, replacing the existing Temple and Keynsham Primary Schools as part of our £23m investment programme in the Council's schools.

8.2 Reducing fear of crime

(1) We ran six of our innovative Environmental Action Days, taking on the spot action on graffiti, fly tipping, abandoned and untaxed vehicles, sorting out damaged litter bins and much more- dealing with over 500 incidents overall.

(2) Our youth crime prevention project, Mentoring Plus, has helped cut levels of drug taking, violent behaviour, criminal damage and trouble with the Police.

(3) With the police, our Trading Standards team mounted an operation to prevent the sale of alcohol to children, visiting pubes, bars and shops undercover to help identify under-age sales - 11 of 41 premised visited sold alcohol to under 18s.

8.3 Improving the quality of public transport, roads and pavements and easing congestion

(1) We now offer 17 different community transport schemes for people who are unable to use conventional public transport due to disability or age.

(2) A record 901 local children successfully completed cycling safety training, compared with 672 the year before.

(3) Commuters across the region saved almost 50,000 car miles cutting queues and damage to the environment as part of our Jam Busting June campaign delivered in partnership with the other three councils across the former Avon area.

8.4 Reducing landfill

(1) We are ranked the third best unitary authority in England for recycling, with nearly 40% of household waste now recycled or composted and the proportion of waste going to landfill falling from 70% to 68%.

(2) We achieved the gold standard in the Local Government Association Reputation Campaign's `cleaner, safer and greener environment' category.

(3) We sold over 6,500 compost bins over the year; that's the same number we sold between March 1999 and December 2005

8.5 Developing a sustainable economy for Bath & North east Somerset

(1) After three years' preparation by Property Services, building work is underway on the £200m redevelopment of Bath's Southgate shopping centre and transport centre and transport hub.

(2) In August 2006 the Bath Spa complex opened, giving people the opportunity to bathe in the UK's only thermal spa waters for the first time in 20 years . Recently voted "best spa" by the readers of the Daily Telegraph travel magazine and with visitor numbers up 15% on expectations the Spa has established its core objective of revitalising the city's spa culture. The wider tourism sector is also experiencing beneficial effects. Research carried out by South West Tourism shows that nearly 80% of spa users gave the Spa as the main reason for visiting the city and since the spa opened hotel occupancy has increased to nearly 77%. The popularity of spa breaks has lead to an increased level of interest from hotel operators. A 90 bedroom 5 star thermal spa hotel is planned in the centre of the city and a number of hotels, including Bath Spa and Lucknam Park, have invested in their spa facilities.

(3) Bath was voted the best city in England in the prestigious annual Guardian and Observer Travel Awards, placing our city third favourite in the UK behind Edinburgh and Glasgow.

8.6 Helping older people to become more independent

(1) Our Adult & Health Services received two stars, the second highest performance rating for Adult Social Services, with independent inspectors telling us we provide our services in the most effective, economic and efficient means available.

(2) Our £27m investment replacing elderly persons' homes with three modern and fully accessible Community Resource Centres continued with the opening of the Carrswood centre in Twerton in March 2007.

(3) Inspectors rated our Supporting People Service as "excellent".

8.7 Making more affordable housing available

(1) We have continued to raise the standard of poor quality property in the private sector, helping improve over 400 homes in the last 18 months by providing grants and loans, and when necessary, forcing landlords to make essential improvements.

(2) We have improved our official housing score to the maximum of four.

(3) Our new Homefinders Scheme helped 35 potentially homeless families find homes in the areas they want to live

8.8 Making a better future for disadvantaged teenagers

(1) Government inspectors judged us to be a "good" council in relation to services provided for children and young people, consistently exceeding minimum requirements and making a difference to children's lives.

(2) Over 2,000 pupils now enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables, less salt and a better diet thanks to our healthy meals scheme.

(3) The percentage of 19-year old care leavers in education, employment and training significantly improved from 45% to 73%.

8.9 Improving customer satisfaction

(1) The Council committed to achieving Charter Mark accreditation for excellence in customer service, with several services already achieving the mark over the year.

(2) We refurbished the Guildhall cash office in bath, including installing two cash machines (halving waiting times during peak periods) and a disabled access desk.

(3) Our Customer Access Programme continued to improve customer choice and flexibility, now dealing with 80% enquiries at the first point of contact.

8.10 Customer Satisfaction survey results: The Government's three yearly satisfaction survey of some of our services showed that:

(1) our museums and galleries satisfaction is 60% - keeping us amongst the highest in the country.

(2) Satisfaction with our parks and open spaces increased from 83% to 85%, again one of the highest figures in the country.

8.11 Satisfaction also increased in the following areas:

(1) Satisfaction with sports and leisure facilities rose from 51% to 54%.

(2) Satisfaction with cleanliness of our area increased from 61% to 65%.

(3) Satisfaction in the way that complaints are handled rose from 35% to 39%.

(4) Satisfaction with libraries increased from 67% to 69%.

(5) Satisfaction with the local bus services increased from 42% to 53%.

(6) Satisfaction with the information we provide about public transport leapt from 37% to 53%.

(7) And satisfaction with our waste disposal amenities rose from 80% to 82%.

(8) Home Care clients' satisfaction with the service they receive is ranked 4th in the country. This is for services that the Council have either arranged for others to provide or provide directly .

8.12 This time last year we reported that the Revenues & Benefits service was starting to see improvements after a period of poor performance. This year's results have shown the hard work that the service has invested to turn performance around, hitting targets for processing times, fraud sanctions and greatly improving collection rates. Data is not yet available for 06/07, but to compare our collection rates for Council Tax and National Non Domestic Rates (NNDR) with 05/06 performance of all England and Unitary Authorities (UAs), this year's performance is well above both averages and would even place us in the top 25%: our provisional Council Tax collection rate is 98.66% whilst top quartile performance 05/06 is 98.4% (all England); and our provisional NNDR collection rate is 98.90% against top quartile position of 98.6% (all England). In addition to achieving Charter Mark the service has also received a glowing report for their Investors in People Accreditation as well as achieving a score of 3 for CPA (out of a possible 4) as part of annual Benefit Fraud Inspection assessment.

8.13 Looking forward to the next three years, our Local Area Agreement (LAA) has been agreed with the Government and came into effect on 1^st April 2007. The LAA sets out clear priorities for tackling crime and improving local environments, as well as improving health, the economy and services for children. The LAA will attract new funding into the area as well as providing ways for existing resources to be better used and will underpin how we work with other organisations in Bath & North East Somerset to deliver services.

9 RISK MANAGEMENT

9.1 The report author and Cabinet have fully reviewed the risk assessment related to the issue and recommendations, in compliance with the Council's decision making risk management guidance.

9.2 There is a risk relating to the Council's Comprehensive Performance Assessment score and overall star rating if performance targets, set in line with local and national priorities, are not achieved.

10 RATIONALE

10.1 This report is a key part of the Council's performance management framework

11 OTHER OPTIONS CONSIDERED

11.1 None

12 CONSULTATION

12.1 Consultation has been carried out with Cabinet Members, Section 151 Finance Officer; Chief Executive; Monitoring Officer and other Strategic Directors through existing meeting schedules.

13 ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN REACHING THE DECISION

13.1 Social Inclusion; Customer Focus; Sustainability; Human Resources; Property; Young People; Equality (age, race, disability, religion/belief, gender, sexual orientation); Human Rights; Corporate;

14 ADVICE SOUGHT

14.1 Directors' Group including the Council's Monitoring Officer (Council Solicitor) and Section 151 Officer (Strategic Director Support Services) have had the opportunity to input to this report and have cleared it for publication in agreement with Executive members.