Agenda item

Report of the Associate Director of Customer and Corporate Services, Delivery Support Lead, Interim Executive Head of Human Resources and Intelligence, Performance and Improvement Lead

The committee received a report of the Associate Director of Customer and Corporate Services, the Delivery Support Lead, the Executive Head of Human Resources and the Intelligence, Performance and Improvement Lead.

                The Director of Performance delivered a presentation to the committee, which included highlights of the key projects within the Delivery Plan including the delivery of on-street charging points, the tree planting programme, practical completion of the new crematorium and a successful start to the community lottery.         

                The Executive Head of HR and OD delivered the update on the Organisational Development Strategy. This included the forthcoming People Strategy, the health and wellbeing workshops, the work around menopause awareness and the successful management development courses.

                The Intelligence, Performance and Improvement Lead provided an overview of the highlights of the key performance indicators. She noted that there had been good performance with 28 of the 36 indicators meeting or exceeding targets. A number of the street cleansing indicators had missed their targets and were challenging to meet. A number of changes would be implemented in the next quarter, including more challenging targets for waste and recycling and new targets for leisure centre usage. Other areas with challenges were delivery of affordable homes and the number of households in temporary accommodation.

                Discussing the report, the committee focused on the following areas:

·       The number of statutory homeless was lower than the previous quarter, which was surprising given the cost of living. Officers noted that there was often a delay in these wider issues resulting in homelessness but further details would be sought from the housing team.  The definition of statutory homeless was complex, depending, for example, in which council area a person became homeless.

·       The funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund was welcome but the current allocation represented a small portion of the overall project. Ongoing discussions were very positive and Watford’s community and diversity made it an exciting place to invest.

·       The impact of the economy being increasingly cashless on those who were fleeing domestic abuse situations and needed to access services without being tracked.

·       The reasons for the spike in households in temporary accommodation and the delay in developments being completed. The planning powers in relation to this were limited. The economic climate had had an impact on a number of developers with several in administration locally which had delayed the speed of delivery. Delivery of housing was not consistent throughout quarters, which also affected figures; measuring over the longer term was more appropriate.

·       The cost of living had affected council tax collection rates; the CAB provided support to encourage people to spread payments if they were struggling rather than missing payments. The target for the collection rate was based on the area and what was reasonable for the demographics and higher turnover of residents than other areas.

·       The online Report It functionality for street cleansing issues was much improved and more communications to encourage people to use it would be welcome.

·       Fly-posting was challenging to deal with and the target was contractual. If it was not removed quickly it could build up. There were a number of enforcement pathways which could be complex.

·       The compatibility of all makes of electric cars with the local chargepoints.

·       The new crematorium would be open to all and residents could choose whether to use it or West Herts Crematorium.

·       The council’s approach to agile working reduced the risk of staff attending the office when they were unwell and the message was that if staff were ill they needed to take time to recover.

·       The council followed the national terms and conditions as well as legislation in relation to sickness pay. The process to manage persistent absence was long and complex and there were trigger points within the relevant policy. The council’s aim was to support employees to be healthy and able to undertake their role. In the case of staff with a health condition, each case was managed on its merits.

·       The council’s involvement with refugees. There was a hotel near Watford which housed Afghan refugees and there were approximately 70 Ukrainian arrivals living with sponsors or having now moved into the private rented sector and had employment. Refugees were not a big pressure but the impact could change once the hotels were closed and the government work on this was ongoing. It was requested that the KPI data did not deal with refugees who were homeless and other homeless separately.

·       There was a discussion around the health needs of certain groups within Leggatts ward and the need to provide more support in managing their conditions. The Chair noted the issue and would raise it at Health Scrutiny Committee to do a deeper dive into how effectively health care was delivered to address health inequalities.

                RESOLVED –

                 Overview and Scrutiny Committee notes the progress updates within this report relating to:

·       the Council Plan 2022-26 and Delivery Plan 2022 -24 (Appendix A)

·       the Organisational Development Strategy 2020-24 (Appendix B)

·       the key performance indicator results for Quarter 4 of 2022/23 (Appendix C)