Agenda and minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on 1 September 2014 were submitted and approved and the Chairman was authorised to sign them as an accurate record.

An apology for absence was received from Councillor Belsey.

There were none.

Report of the Chief Finance Officer and Head of Corporate Development.

Members considered the report of the Chief Finance Officer and Head of Corporate Development updating Members on the Council’s performance against Corporate Plan Priority actions, indicators and milestones for Quarter 2 2014/15.

Due to operational improvements made to the Council’s activity reporting procedures, changes had been made to one of the reported performance indicators. CS_012 “Calls Handled at First Point of Contact” had now been replaced with CS_012a “Telephone Calls handled at first point of contact.” This new version of the indicator focused solely on phone scripts.

Appendix 1 to the report provided a detailed report on the 2014/15 activities and outturns of the performance indicators listed within the Corporate Plan.  The first section of Appendix 1 listed all the Corporate Plan priority actions whose in-year milestones had already been fully completed this year.  The second section of Appendix 1 listed the ongoing actions showing all milestones that were scheduled for completion within the first quarter of the 2014/5.

Of the 29 Key Performance Indicators reported in the Corporate Plan this quarter, 7 were currently showing as Red, 14 were showing as Green, 2 were showing as Amber and 6 are data only or contextual PIs.  The off target PIs were

·         DE_011 -  Number of reported fly-tipping incidents

·         CD_008 - Decent Homes programme

·         CD_055 – Number of completed adaptations (Disabled Facilities Grants)

·         CD_156-  Number of households living in temporary accommodation

·         ECSP_002 - Shoplifting rate compared to 2013/14

·         ECSP_004 - Violent crime in a public place rate compared to 2013/14

·         ECSP_016 – Serious Acquisitive Crime (robbery, car crime and burglary dwelling) rate compared to 2013/14

Members discussed the Business Rates review, Beach huts, the work of the Multiple Needs Panels, the low rate of sickness absence by Council staff, the Staff Survey and the introduction of Universal Credit and support for more vulnerable members of the community.

Members noted the position of the General Fund showed a variance of £77,000 on net expenditure which was a movement of £60,000 compared to the position reported at the end of the first quarter in June. Service expenditure has a variance of £113,000 mainly as a result of:

One-off Backdated rental income (£35k)

Development Control Legal and Consultants Fees £40k

Downs Water Supply new Contract £33k

Dotto Train £65k

An element of this service overspend is off set by the saving on the contingency fund

The committee was advised that quarter one monitoring report that there were a number of risks around the Revenues and Benefits area due to the implementation of a new system. Whilst the project was delivered broadly on time and on budget, the nature of the benefits regime required post implementation checking to be put in place to reduce errors. This checking was still ongoing and would continue to year end. At year end the new system and the audit would be complete and therefore the risk would be quantifiable.

The contingency fund currently stood at £161,050, and had been used to offset service expenditure. Therefore there was no further  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.