The Committee is asked to consider the Performance Monitoring Report 2019/20 Quarter 3 (October – December 2019).

The Leader and the Business Support Officer – Policy have been invited to attend for this item.

The Chairman welcomed the Leader, the Policy and Performance Support Officer and the Environmental Services Manager to the meeting.  The report set-out the quarterly performance management report for the third quarter of 2019/20 (October – December 2019) as previously reported to the Strategic Management Team and informal Cabinet.

The Leader explained that there were signs that a few of the indicators were improving, but had remained red because of their performance in the second quarter.  He said that he had met with Biffa, and with a better fleet, things should now improve.  The Leader welcomed the increase in affordable homes being delivered, as noted on page 11 of the report.

Members were invited to make comments and ask questions page-by-page.

Table 1

A Member asked why the number of refused planning applications had risen.  The Policy and Performance Support Officer explained that this could be because of the lower take-up of pre-application advice.

Members discussed the number of missed bins per annum and the following points were raised:

Some streets had their bins emptied and others off the main road did not.  The Leader explained that there was a chronic shortage of drivers, and the agency drivers did not know their way round.  The Environmental Services Manager said that he would look into this further.  He did say that Biffa were looking at solutions to retain their drivers.  He added that operatives had a hand held Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) device which showed which streets had been visited.

A debate took place regarding whether brown garden waste bins were included in the missed bin figures and it was determined that they were.

A visiting Member considered 70 missed bins a week out of 60,000 was not too bad, and he suggested there were more complaints of missed bins than was noted in the report.  The Policy and Performance Support Officer said that the figures may be ‘flipped’ to show the amount of bins collected, rather than not collected.

A Member asked how the figures were collected and the Environmental Services Manager advised that they came from calls to the Customer Services Centre (CSC) or were logged online.  The Member suggested that the figure in reality was greater as it would be the whole street that had not been collected.

Some Members said that parked cars hampered access for the freight vehicles.

The Environmental Services Manager confirmed that he would look into whether once a call had been made, and the bin later collected, whether the call stayed as a missed bin.

There was some discussion on the performance measures used for bin collection.

Councillor David Simmons proposed that the Cabinet Member considered a performance measure more suitable for the refuse indicator.  This was seconded by Councillor Tim Gibson and agreed by Members.

In response to a question, the Environmental Services Manager confirmed that all freighters were fitted with CCTV and this helped to investigate missed bins and encourage operatives to improve performance.

Percentage of calls to Customer Service Centre answered in 20 seconds

A Member considered 61% for this was an extremely good figure, and complimented the CSC for this.  He said the figure could be improved, but acknowledged the pressure the staff were under.

Table 3

A Member felt there was too much detail on the reasons for long-term sickness, and that an individual could be identified by the description.  Another Member considered this could be the case if the figures were lower.

A Member praised the fly-tipping figures and commended the team.

A Member suggested that the lack of delivery of affordable housing was because developers were not building-out once they had got planning permission.

A Member drew attention to the business indicators on the top of page 11, and thought they needed to be looked at further.  The Policy and Performance Support Officer explained that these were new indicators and as such there was not enough data yet to see a trend.

A Member suggested the Swale CVS figures needed to be broken down to identify the type of enquiry received.

The Policy and Performance Support Officer confirmed that he would include the previous quarter values for comparison.

Table 4

A Member commended the Planning Department and said that this was a great achievement.

Table 5

A Member raised concern that the discovery of asbestos during works at Faversham Recreation Ground improvements had not been found sooner.  The Policy and Performance Support Officer said that it was the quantity of asbestos that had been the issue.  A Member said the improvements were going well, and he welcomed the legacy, enabled by the Big Lottery Fund, being put in place. 

A Member asked if there was an allowance from the Heritage Fund for dealing with the asbestos.  The Environmental Services Manager agreed to email a response to Members.

A Member asked about progress with the beach huts at Minster, and the Environmental Services Manager agreed to email a response to Members.  Another Member noted the popularity of the beach huts and the opportunity to raise revenue and encourage tourism and considered this matter should be progressed more urgently than later in 2020.

In response to questions about the Mill skate park, a Member advised that there was some tidying-up to do to make it safe.

The Leader thanked Members for their comments.

The Chairman thanked the Leader and officers for attending for this item.

Resolved:

(1)      That the report be noted.