Agenda item

Report of the Partnerships and Performance Section Head.

This report provides the Panel with the relevant performance indicators for Quarter 1 (2014/15).

The Panel received a report of the Partnerships and Performance Section Head providing the quarterly performance indicators for quarter 1 2014-15. 

The Partnerships and Performance Section Head had sent her apologies and responses to the Panel’s queries would be circulated.

Members discussed the possibility of visiting the Depot and agreed that this would be helpful.

ACTION - Committee and Scrutiny Support Officer

The Chair referred to 3.2.3 of the report and emphasised that Members were keen that the work was quality assured by Watford Borough Council staff rather than Veolia staff.

ACTION – Committee and Scrutiny Support Officer

The Panel raised the following issues:

• There was concern regarding the complaints about cleanliness at the leisure centres.  Members asked for details of the maintenance and cleaning regime at Woodside leisure centre.

• The Panel asked for the number of complaints about different aspects of the leisure centres and the Colosseum to be included in the performance report.

• Councillor Hastrick wished to have more details about why classes were cancelled at the leisure centres as this was an area of complaint.

• For LC5 and LC10, Councillor Dhindsa was interested in how the percentage of the membership reflected the percentage of Watford's population as a whole.

• The Panel were concerned that the proportion of the membership aged 55+ was quite low.  They were interested in any data about why the levels were so low.  They suggested that cost, transport, and the offer available may be factors.  Councillor Aron suggested that a survey may be useful which councillors could promote. The Committee and Scrutiny Support Officer said that she understood a user survey had recently taken place, and there may be data available.

• Councillor Dhindsa was interested in the effect that competition from other gyms had had on membership levels at the leisure centres.  He asked for more information.

• Councillor Martins referred to the number of dark days at the Colosseum.  He suggested that it would be better if community groups were able to make use of the venue on those days.  The Panel asked for more details of the charging structure and any discounts for community groups.

ACTION - Partnerships and Performance Section Head

Following a question from Councillor Collett, the Director of Finance gave an update on the Council’s ICT service.  She advised that there were two improvement programmes currently underway, these were account recovery to improve issues not addressed during the transition period and the IT modernisation programme.  Funding had been agreed by Council to upgrade the server estate and the desktop estate as well as provision for ongoing maintenance.  Officers were meeting with senior representatives from Capita to discuss the issues and to find ways to resolve them.  Officers were identifying where Capita’s performance had resulted in increased costs for the Council. 

It was noted that the Council would be moving to Windows 7; the reason for this was that the business applications used by the Council needed to be compatible with the Operating System.

The Panel noted that a significant number of calls had breached the service level agreement. The Director of Finance advised that officers had been working with Capita to gain accurate information about the service.  There had been issues with the Helpdesk response times and the resolution numbers.

Councillors discussed various aspects of the ICT service and the Chair summarised that the areas that Members were interested in for the next meeting about ICT were: staffing, the service level agreement and the penalties and service for councillors.

The Panel reviewed the indicators for Revenues and Benefits.  The Committee and Scrutiny Support Officer explained that a number of indicators relating to revenues were reported to Budget Panel.  Officers would discuss how these indicators were reported for the next performance report.

It was noted that the indicator RB2 had been affected by the problems at the DWP.

ACTION – Partnerships and Performance Section Head

RESOLVED –

1. that the Panel notes the performance of the identified outsourced

service indicators at the end of quarter 1.

2. that the Panel’s requests for additional information be noted.