To review the Council’s key performance indicators and make recommendations to the Cabinet.

The Board reviewed and noted the submitted report which set out the key performance indicators for the Council up to the end of 2023/2024.  The Cabinet Member for Tourism, Culture & Events and Corporate Services, Councillor Jackie Thomas, highlighted the progress made towards the Council’s priorities.  105 out of 175 indicators had an annual performance which could be compared to previous years with 60% having an improved direction of travel, 34% showing a decline and 6% having no change.

The Board asked a number of questions in relation to what had been done to prevent people from becoming homeless; what was the reason for loss of private rented accommodation; the Government identifying the need for 300 planning officers with funding to support this; there were 586 open enforcement cases what was the target (the Director of Pride in Place to provide a written response to the targets relating to planning enforcement); what was the reason for the high increase in entrants to the youth justice service; how was the staff sickness calculated; what action was being taken to address the low levels against the target for corporate complaints; what would the three top complaints be (the Director of Corporate Services agreed to provide a written response to this question); electric vehicle charging points was showing as red, what was the reason for this and why was it taking so long to install; and Torre Abbey’s footfall had increased but events had decreased, what was the reason for this.

Members were advised that the level of prevention activity had decreased for when people were presenting to the Council as in crisis for accommodation, however there had been an increase in triage activity supporting people before they were in crisis using tools such as fix it fund spend and working with housing associations and landlords to support people to keep their tenancies.  There had been an internal audit carried out on prevention with the biggest cause being the loss of private rented accommodation.  Previously the loss had been caused by Air B&B and the financial crisis with landlords needing to increase rents due to increase mortgage rates, this had now moved to the affordability of tenants paying their rents.  However compared to last year the pressure on discretionary housing payments had reduced, which may be due to the increase in housing benefits but still the level of homelessness was continuing with 27% in Torbay living in rented accommodation.

It was acknowledged that planning, particularly planning enforcement was a problem across the whole country, which was being constantly monitored.  The proposed money from the Government would be useful but there was a national shortage of good quality Planning Officers and it was hoped that colleges and universities would train more people to join this sector.  The Planning Service for the Future had been scrutinised in detail in May 2024 by the Board and a briefing would be provided to all Councillors on 30 July 2024 providing an update.  Processing times had improved with extensions to time and changes to communication approaches, but the timeliness of responses still needed to improve.  The new Enforcement Strategy had been drafted.

The Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Councillor Bye, advised that there had been a Chief Executive’s Deep Dive into the Youth Justice Board that day together with an emergency meeting with the Youth Justice Borad as their performance was going in the wrong direction.  Councillor Bye gave assurance that the statistics in the performance report for year end did not corelate with the current situation, which showed a more encouraging picture.  There had been a peak last Summer and Autumn which had now fallen away but there had been a spike in the TQ3 area which had improved as a result of intervention work and support in the community with the Police and other agencies on diversionary activities in the area.

It was noted that the staff sickness levels were cumulative across the year but fluctuated depending on the number of staff employed at the time.

Members were advised that the Chief Executive and Directors were making a concerted effort to challenge performance on complaints, which had halved the number of days taken on average.  Continued progress has been made since the report was written showing a slight levelling off and the number of complaints had decreased slightly.  This action taken to date was being reviewed and alternative intervention measures were being explored as well as communication and praise to staff for all their good work.

The Board noted that the Council was working with the private sector to install electric charging points, which were mainly private initiatives put there for profit which requires companies to come to the Council with expressions of interest.  The numbers of electric vehicles was not as high in Torbay, often they were purchased as a company car with the need for more employers having a policy on electric vehicles which was behind compared to other areas.  The Council has entered into a partnership to provide electric charging in some of our car parks but the Council needs to ensure that the type of chargers we install were fast enough and good enough to keep up with the market.

It was noted that the increase in footfall at Torre Abbey was partly due to having more topic specific exhibitions e.g. Cary Exhibition and Paddington Bear with more events proposed throughout the year.  The decrease in events was due to lack of volunteers required to safely run community events.

The Board would continue to monitor the performance of the Youth Justice Service as part of the next Performance Report as well as seeing an actual target for outstanding enforcement cases (as previously requested).