Agenda item

 Deputy Chief Executives

The Head of Policy introduced the report and the main points highlighted were:

• The performance information for 2008/09 was used for both the Area Assessment and the Organisation Assessment elements of the Comprehensive Area Assessment. The Council had received a score of 3 for the Organisation Assessment
• As part of the Area Assessment the Council was awarded a Green Flag for partnership working to support unaccompanied asylum seeking children  
• DCEO had 12 targets in the Council Plan which were under the theme “serving our community and customers”. At the end of Q2 there were 2 targets completed, 9 on track and just 1 target showing slippage
• The target which had slipped was in relation to improving footpaths in north and west of the borough under the chrysalis project
• There were 10 targets in the group plan that would enable the Council to achieve its priority of achieving value for money. At the end of Q2, 8 tasks were on target, 2 tasks showing slippage, with one task showing serious slippage. This was the appointment of the Joint Director of Public Health. Members were informed that the post had now been filled and the post holder would commence duties in March 2010
• Reference was made to Local Indicators and in particular sickness absence figures where DCEO had ended 2008-09 just within its target of 6.5 and had a good first quarter of 2009-10.
• In response to a request regarding details of the Q3 sickness figures for the whole of the Council, officers subsequent to the meeting reported that the current (cumulative) sickness absence figures for the Council to November 2009 was 8.38 days. When the Swine Flu figures were excluded, this reduced to 8.17 days. This was above the target for the Council of 7.5 days, but compared well with other London Boroughs and nationally
• The £1.6m service review savings would not impact on front line services.

Finance & Resources

The Support Services Manager for Finance & Resources introduced the report and the main points highlighted were:

·           National Indicator on Avoidable Contact for 2009-10 -  a half yearly sample measurement was taken in July 2009 with a result of 21% avoidable contact

·           BV9 – Proportion of Council Tax Collected and BV10 – Proportion of non-domestic rates collected for Q3 were both better than their targets

·           Members Enquiries and Customer Complaints – Performance was back to an acceptable level after a poor performance in the middle of 2008-09. Officers would provide Members with details on whether the number of customer complaints had increased

·           Three tasks for achieving value for money and which were managed by Corporate Property were showing slight slippage, largely due to delays in implementing the Corporate Landlord organisational model. In Q3 there had been good progress on this and this would allow some of the slippage to be recovered by the year end

·           Good progress had been made in relation to reducing the use of agency staff and agency staff were now being retained for more demonstrably robust business reasons than previously 

·           In relation to the strengthening of planning and performance from the directorate’s Group Action Plan, 9 of the 7 tasks had been completed, with one on target. The task which had slipped was the implementation of a single system for receiving payments over the internet. This was now due for completion in October 2010   

·           The ICT Operational Delivery Team had won the 2008-09 award for Best Performing Support Team

 Resolved- 

1.  That the information contained in the reports be noted and officers be congratulated for the performance of the directorates.