To review the Council’s key performance indicators for Quarter 2 2024/2025 and make recommendations to the Cabinet.

Councillor Lewis, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Place Development and Economic Growth provided an overview of the submitted report which set out details of the Council’s performance against the priorities in the Community and Corporate Plan as at Quarter 2 for 2024/2025.

Members asked questions in relation to page 43, how the projects relate in the different columns under community and people; what were the projects under BPO4 – Percentage of contacts to Children’s Services progressing to early help services in the period on page 44 and why were they not on target; BP07 what was the reason for the percentage of cared for children in the period with three or more placements in the last 12 months being so high; it was positive to see 305 carers signed up to MyBay discount scheme, what was being done to increase numbers; what was the long term action plan to improve the average customer wait time when contacting Customer Services by phone as this was much worse than target; when would BP47 percentage of weed spraying schedule due, to be achieved during the quarter be back on track; what action was being taken to improve the timescale for determining planning applications and reduce the number of appeals being upheld; Torquay Museum holds nationally important collections could the Council do more to support them; how would the decision to turn down the YMCAs proposal for new housing impact on the delivery of new housing; clarification on if the timeline for Brixham Car Park had been met; page 53 decarbonisation refers to political support was needed for the priorities, a list had been previously provided, what was the current situation; and a lot of emphasis was put on enforcement cases, at the end of last year there were 586 cases and now there were 664 cases, when was it expected to get down to the target of 450 cases.

In response to questions, Members were informed that that each column in the tables needed to be read separately as they do not relate to each other.  Namely Projects, milestones due in 2024/2025 and performance indicators for each service area.

Members noted that BP04 percentage of contacts to Children’s Services progressing to early help services was being reviewed by the Children’s Services Continuous Improvement Board.  It was noted that there was additional wording around BP04 on page 61 of the report.  BP07 percentage of cared for children in the period with three or more placements in the last 12 months was much worse than target due to the numbers involved, however, the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services (Councillor Bye) explained that the Council does the best for each individual child but sometimes it was in their best interest to bring them back from placements to foster carers. 

It was noted that the MyBay resident’s discount scheme was being promoted through the Carers’ Newsletter which goes out to a wide range of Carers and their social media, Carers Right’s Day on 25 November 2024.  The number of Carers signed up had increased to 460.  Overall 1200 residents had signed up.

The Board was informed that there was an improvement plan in place to reduce the amount of time people waited when phoning Customer Services, with volatile peeks when letters were sent out e.g. Council Tax Single Person Discount, which could be overwhelming, the timing of such communications would need to be balanced in the future.  Part of a move to a target operating model, Officers were working with the Department and would be reviewing all processes early in the New Year to try to digitise more and include a customer satisfaction survey.

Members were advised of the issues relating to the electric quad back and the impact that it had on grass cutting which had caused a backlog and there was a desire to link the timing of grass cutting with weed spraying utilising a weed ripper to remove the dead weeds.  It was anticipated that there would be a greater improvement in the Spring for this target area.  A concern was raised about the use of glyphosate weed sprays, but it was explained that this was the most suitable chemical to use and with the use of the weed ripper it had a longer lasting effect on weeds.

In response to questions around planning, Members were advised that the Cabinet acknowledged there had been some improvements but there was a long way to go, a new Interim Director of Pride in Place (Anthony Payne) had been appointed and was working with the Divisional Director of Planning, Housing and Climate Emergency (David Edmondson) to encourage pre-applications and looking at capacity in the Team and how this could be improved.  Members were reminded to encourage people to enter into pre-application discussions to aid the processing of their planning applications.  The enforcement performance had been impacted by staffing with numbers of cases continuing to increase.  A new Enforcement Strategy had been agreed as well as in-year funding for two additional members of staff and the member of staff who had been off sick had returned to work.  It was anticipated that the new working practices and available staff would help get numbers down so that they could then focus more on new cases.

Members were advised that ongoing discussions were being held with Torquay Museum around support and funding.

The Board was advised that Officers were working with the YMCA to try to help them secure future sites to deliver the much needed housing for our care leavers and young people to help support delivery of the Council’s housing targets.

It was noted that Brixham Car Park had been put on hold pending the confirmation of funding from the Government, who had announced last week that they would not be clawing back any funding.  The next item on the agenda would include a request for extra funding to be added to the Budget Monitoring Report to cover the feasibility study for this project.

Members were informed that the priorities for decarbonisation needed to be further reviewed by the Cabinet so that they could determine which priorities the Council could afford to take forward.

It was noted that the Long Term Plan for Towns (LTPT) referred to on page 53 had not been discontinued it was £20m over 10 years but the Council did not yet know the detail and was waiting for confirmation from the Government. 

Resolved (unanimously):

1.         that the content of the submitted Performance report be noted; and

2.         that the Director of Corporate Services be requested to include more detail within the performance report under the sections where the performance is not meeting its target.

(Note:  prior to consideration of Minute 31, Councillor Douglas-Dunbar declared a non-pecuniary interest as a Trustee of Torquay Museum Society.)