To receive and consider the report of the Director (Policy and Governance).

The Chair, Councillor John Walker, welcomed Asim Khan, Director (Customer and Digital) and Adrian Lowe, Executive Member (Customer, Advice and Streetscene Services) and Alistair Morwood, Executive Member (Public Protection) to the meeting.

The Performance Panel received a report from Asim Khan, Director (Customer and Digital), which outlined performance at quarter four 2018/19. Rebecca Aziz-Brook, Transformation Programme Co-Ordinator, presented the report.

The services within the directorate are;

·         Planning

·         Customer services

·         Streetscene

·         ICT

·         Enforcement

Asim Khan welcomed Cllr Alistair Morwood as the new Executive Member for Public Protection which included the responsibility for the regulatory services. Customer and Digital is a diverse directorate which consisted of the majority of front-line services. Performance had been successful, and the directorate continued to meet aspirations. With regards to the financial position, the budget for the Directorate underspent by £60,000 which had created a 0.9% variance against the original cash budget.

Enforcement

Asim Khan advised that over the last year the new Enforcement Team had been established and the enforcement services were consolidated to deliver services in an effective way. Additional powers such as Section 215 notices have been exercised, and a continued focus and response to community concerns to address fly tipping and dog fouling is being made.

ICT

Work to support the delivery of the council’s ICT and Digital strategies had continued, including the roll out of worksmart principles to many teams in the council and the delivery of Office 365. In order to support this work, additional ICT staffing had been appointed to, to ensure that the team could support this work effectively. A notable successful project has been the introduction of public town centre Wi-Fi which was completed on time.

Council Tax

At 98.14%, the percentage of council tax collected was slightly behind target at quarter four in comparison to 2017/18, although this was in line with the trend across other Lancashire authorities. Following queries, Asim Khan ensured Members that any arrears were tracked and advised on the recovery cycle with regards to Council Tax and the debt policy in place for circumstances where payment couldn’t be made.

Streetscene and Waste

With regards to Streetscene and waste, a new waste procurement exercise had been concluded with a focus during the fourth quarter to mobilise the contract in April 2019. New refuse collection vehicles had been ordered and supported with technology realising significant savings for the council.

Following Member queries, Asim Khan advised that the annual target for garden waste subscriptions was circa £710,000. There had been 22,370 subscriptions last year which indicated a shortfall against projected figures.

Promotion had taken place but further marketing had been scheduled later on in the year as greater focus had been made on the mobilisation of the new waste contract to mitigate the impact of this. However, in the fourth quarter a paper-based direct debit campaign had taken place to provide support to senior citizens unable to pay by card but could do so through the bank. This exercise had proved successful and was commended by Members who agreed that this be undertaken again next year.

There had been a one-month grace renewal period for garden waste bin collections to facilitate late subscriptions. There had also been a number of cases where residents had subscribed and received the new label but had not placed this on their bin. Under the new waste contract, the team will have devices which enabled them to identify whether a property had subscribed.

Cllr Gillian Sharples left the meeting at 7pm.

Following queries, Members were advised that the current software system ‘My Work’ would be replaced by new software, Alloy by Yotta, which would offer additional functionality and flexibility and improve productivity within the service. The first phase, which was expected to be completed by the end of September, would focus on litter bin emptying and street sweeping. The first year of this software deployment would provide baseline data for the future.

Councillor Adrian Lowe advised that the council had procured new street cleansing vehicles which would soon be operational. The service and maintenance of the vehicles was built into the new contract to improve breakdown performance.

Following discussion, Members agreed that there had been a drastic improvement with regards to grass cutting with 94% resident satisfaction.

Planning

Asim Khan advised that the Planning team had performed extremely well over the last year. There had been changes to staff with a new member of staff due to start soon. Councillor Alistair Morwood reiterated the planning team’s efficient progress and advised that there had been a decrease in the number of major planning applications the council was receiving.

Customer Services

Members recognised that there had been an improvement with customer service call times. Cllr Adrian Lowe advised that the council would be changing phone suppliers which meant that the out of hours numbers would be unavailable overnight on Tuesday 16 July 2019, however there was an emergency contact number in place and information would be sent out about this. This work would provide the wider transformation of front-line services by supporting staff to have more phone functionality.

The Chair thanked Asim Khan and Councillors Adrian Lowe and Alistair Morwood for the attendance.

Decision – That the report be noted.

Asim Khan and Cllr Alistair Morwood left the meeting at 7.15pm