Agenda item

Rob Dobson reported on Quarter 4 Performance 2021-22 and highlighted strong performance relating to strategic objectives in particular environmental prosecutions, new business assists and on the empty homes programme.

He also highlighted off target performance on telephone answering, it being partially due to longer telephone calls, that feedback from Members had been received about it and that following discussions with Liberata more staff had been recruited as well as action to reduce sickness absence. He indicated an intention to bring a further performance report to the September meeting of Scrutiny including the potential involvement of Liberata`s Contact Manager Simon Miller.

Members made the following points;

-how many staff work from home?

Rob stated it was a mixture at Liberata, with new staff were working at the Contact Centre, although for senior staff there was no difference in performance working from home. He also stated Liberata acknowledged that there was significant understaffing to deal with recent queries about cost-of- living rebates and this had affected the Council`s contract performance.

-there had been an experience of much better telephone responses recently, including getting back the next day with an update on action taken

Lukman Patel stated that service credits had been applied to Liberata for  more than a year notwithstanding the pandemic, where response was below the requisite KPI without justification allowed by the contract. Regarding working from home Liberata had a different policy from the Council`s which was currently for staff to work in the office for a minimum of 3 days. He indicated that Liberata had advised that the customer service market was moving towards working from home and that the issue of recruitment and retention in this sector was a factor for Liberata, and that the Council was only able to mandate in its contract with Liberata on outputs.

-concern about the increased length of calls was expressed

Rob stated that calls were based on the local area rate, that abandonment was at 5% which compared favourable within the call centre environment, and that further information on telephone issue would be reported in September.

-were fines paid on Streetscene issues, how was payment managed, did the fines make any difference, and who was being fined?

Lukman indicated that fines went through an enforcement and court process, that further information could be provided by the debtors team. Press releases were issued by the Council to state that such behaviour would not be tolerated and would result in fines. He indicated that the Council was amongst the most prolific nationally for issuing dog fouling fines.

Rob indicated that fines had been consistent year on year with more resources brought into enforcement and that fines for flytipping were higher than all other Lancashire Districts combined.

-Members stated that Streetscene worked hard to tackle repeat offenders and carry out enforcement

-why were planning targets only set at 60%?

Paul Gatrell indicated that 60% relate to a minimum performance level which could then lead to sanctions or special measures and that it was not a target which Planning was aiming for, with major applications currently achieving 100%.

-was the Council safe from special measures in planning, and what is the performance on turnaround time and capacity?

Paul stated that targets were different for different types of application for example for household applications there was an 8-week target being met in 84% of cases and that there were various reasons for this being achievable such as negotiations or applicant issues. He confirmed that there was now a full complement of staff in planning and that he was comfortable there was no danger of the planning service at the moment going into special measures.

IT WAS AGREED

That the report be noted, and that a further report be brought to the September meeting with an invitation for Simon Miller from Liberata also to attend.