Finance and Performance Scrutiny Sub-Committee - Tuesday 10 March 2026, 6:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Finance and Performance Scrutiny Sub-Committee
Tuesday, 10th March 2026 at 6:00pm 

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  1. Webcast Finished

evening we will need to elect a chair for the meeting. Do I have any
nominations? I'd like to propose a councillor Thomas. Is that agreed? Excellent.
if you want to take the chair, councillor Thomas.

1 Apologies for absence

.
Good evening, and welcome to the meeting of the Finance and Performance
Scrutiny Subcommittee. This meeting will be broadcast live to the Internet. For those
who do not wish to be recorded or filmed, you will need to leave the chamber. For
members, officers, and others speaking at the meeting, it is important that the
microphones are used so viewers on the webcast and others in the room may hear
Would anyone with a mobile phone please switch it to silent mode as they can be distracting.
I would like to remind members that although we all have strong opinions on matters under consideration,
it is important to treat members, officers and public speakers with respect. Thank you.
So we'll go to apologies for absence.
Thank you, Chair. We've had apologies from Councillors O 'Connor, Feukele and Holgate.
Thank you. Item 2, declarations of interest.
Thank you very much. So we'll go on to the third item on the agenda, which is the draught

2 Declarations of interest

3 Draft Treasury Management 2025/26 - Q3

performance report 2025 -26 for quarter 3. So I'll hand over to... Is Gavin leading on that?
Or is it Jonathan?
It does indeed, yes, sorry.
Yes, so item 3 is the Treasury management report, quarter 3, sorry.
Thank you.
Hi.
Yeah, this is your quarter 3 Treasury report activity up till 31st of December.
Another point to note is we had about 106 million in borrowing.
We took out 4 million of PWLB borrowing for the HRA, which is to refile a loan that will
repay in March.
We had approximately 30 million in investments and our long -term investments continue to
perform pretty well.
And that's it.
Any questions?
Thank you very much for that.
Any questions from the floor?
Thank you.
Councillor Wien.
Thank you, Chair.
Starting off, obviously, in recent events over the last couple of weeks, it's possible
that it will affect the Common Immigrant.
I presume it's too early for it to affect the Council yet or anything.
Is that correct?
Yeah, thank you, Councillor Wien.
So yeah, you're absolutely right.
It's a little bit early.
Obviously, this report is historical, it's looking back.
In terms of interest rate, the next Bank of England meeting is on the 19th of March,
that's when we can expect it is going to change, it will change.
However, the market currently as it stands in the moment is either going
to increase interest rates or potentially hold as they are,
but we'll see as this world event unravel.
Thank you.
Is that okay?
Councillor Martin.
Thank you, Chair.
So I had a couple, one was largely for information only
really, but it was just in 3 .2 and 3 .3 where we're showing
our borrowing and we're talking about how the,
how we're using internal borrowing within that
and how that kind of naturally fluctuates over the period.
I think I sort of understand how that works,
and I think we discussed that before,
but I'd just be interested in just a little bit more detail
on how that flows across the year,
and whether when you take out those kind of
seasonal changes, if you like,
whether there's a kind of a net impact
that's going on in the background
underneath those seasonal changes,
or whether it's just a pure sort of zero -sum game
that sort of plays out over a period of time.
Okay, thank you for the question, Councillor Martin.
So it depends really, because in terms of internal borrowing, it depends on using our
cash resources to be able to fund either capital borrowing or loans or whatever.
So it depends on really your capital programme, it depends on the actual needs of the organisation
as we go throughout the years.
So there's no particular one year we may have an increase in internal borrowing of years,
it may decrease.
we tend to look at borrowing rates,
we tend to look at, say, the capital need,
the demand that we have for borrowing or whether or not,
say, for example, we sold the capital receipt,
whether or not we can utilise that rather than borrow.
So it really does depend on each financial year
as we progress through.
Okay, thank you.
So you're basically just gonna use whatever
you have access to,
and sometimes you've got more or less over time.
There's nothing else going on beyond that.
Lovely, thank you for that.
I was also gonna ask about the,
everything going on in the financial world,
but I won't repeat that question.
What I was interested in though is,
so under the investment section,
again, it's a sort of a,
oh, there goes the sign.
Just a, I was quite,
I was struggling to cut the things together here.
So if I just get there myself.
So the,
we refer to a cabinet decision last year, 2025,
and within that there's obviously been a discussion
around our sort of ESG focus.
And then the commentary is suggesting
that we're gonna sort of embrace that,
but look at that kind of carefully over time
and weave that into our sort of investment strategy
in future.
I wasn't sure how that was,
how that, it seemed to be fairly,
I couldn't piece together a clear storey
of what's happening, so I'll be interested
in a little bit more detail on that.
But then there's a section entitled
Better World Cautious Fund.
And I couldn't understand the context at all as to why that was there.
I don't know whether I missed something in the report, but we're suddenly explaining
the workings of this fund.
And I wasn't sure whether the suggestion was we're about to start using this fund or it's
a new fund in our investment portfolio or what.
So if you could help me understand that a bit better.
And then I may have a follow -up question.
That is the CCLA Diverse Income Fund. They just renamed it to give it more. It is more
around the ESG. They focus more on that side of things. So it's just, it's not a new fund.
They just changed the name.
So are all of our funds in that one fund or do we have a portfolio of?
We've got four different investment funds,
property fund, that one, and two others.
I may well have been shown that before
in a previous report, but maybe in follow up
I'd be interested in seeing those.
I'd be interested in a bit more detail on that.
My follow -up question was going to be, so,
well, I guess in part, a previous question I had
was around our strategy, so I get the impression
from the report that we're looking to embrace
more of an ESG focus, and the report says
how we're going to look at that carefully over time,
and et cetera, so I'd like a little bit more information
around how we're going to balance that,
and I guess I'd be keen to understand
how we intend to balance our
Admiral desire to be focused on ESG
with actually ensuring that we have prudent investments
and getting good rates of return.
So if I may, to answer part of your first question first,
all our investments held currently
are shown in Appendix 2, so the breakdown of our funds
are shown in Appendix 2 of the report.
In terms of the ESG, so I think one thing that as a council that we're always trying
to challenge is the amount of information that's coming out of brokers and investments
and funds for us to be able to understand and analyse where they are placing their money.
So you're absolutely right in terms of your question in terms of how do we balance the
requirement for ESG with also prudent investment.
So during this year that's what we're going to try and look at, try and provide more information,
and challenge our fund managers more in terms of providing
that information so that we can assess whether or not
the investments that we're making are fit for purpose
in terms of fitting to our ESG policy,
but also have that right balance in terms of return
as opposed to aspirations as well.
So that's part of the piece of work
that will come forward as part of this year.
If I could, yeah, so to summarise my understanding of that,
so no significant changes have happened.
It's more a sense of direction that's come out of cabinet
and something that you'll look at
and then we'll get a chance to look at that further.
Yes, correct.
Brilliant, thank you very much for that.
Yeah, I've got a couple of questions.
First on Appendix 1 on borrowing,
we've got this 30 million in short -term loans on here,
one of which is due at the end of this month.
what's the follow -on arrangements to either carry on with those or understand what we
need to do to finance those short -term arrangements?
That's my first question, thank you.
We either refinance them as short -term borrowing or we look to change them into PW or B borrowing
and we look at the rates and decide which is the best one to choose.
Just on the investment side, just a sort of well done really.
So under 8 .1 on the compliance report, everything on there is fully compliant,
which is really good to see.
I mean that shows that we're getting control of it and well done for that.
And the same in item 9, all the indicators there are sort of A plus and compliant,
which is really good to see.
So again, I think it's just worth recognising that here.
but that puts in quite a strong position
on the investment side.
So thank you very much for that.
Do we have any more questions, Councillor Wien?
Yeah, I think actually,
we answered Councillor Martin's question,
but I was looking at table 5 .13 on page, what is it now?
It's 13 on PDF.
And moving on to ESGs, which are underneath it,
On the table number five,
it looks like we're doing really well
in terms of similar local authorities
and all local authorities.
I wonder if you have a look at whether they do more ESGs.
I notice you do a lot on the churches,
charities and local authorities.
We've got quite a few.
They're a sustainable investment firm.
I just wonder if you look at other local authorities
as well as you said you're gonna go back
to the managers of the fund
and look at what they do as well.
And once they do more or not,
I just wondered, compare with other local authorities,
basically.
We do have a Kent treasury forum, we meet twice a year.
So with my kind of counterparts at the other
Kent authorities, and we look at what we're all investing
in, but most people have CCLA investments,
which was always one of the good ones to have.
I'm not worried about that saying, you think, okay, that's what it was.
Thank you, Chair.
Any further questions?
Okay, so we do have a recommendation, which is to receive and note Report C of leak 25,
leak 88, which is draught Treasury management 2025 .6, quarter three.
So could I have a proposal for that, please?
Councillor Martin and the seconder, Councillor Wing.
All those in favour?
That's unanimous, thank you very much.

4 Draft Performance Report 2025/26 - Q3

Okay, so now we will move on to item four,
which is the draught performance report 2025 -26 quarter three.
And now it's going over to Gavin, thank you.
Thank you, Chair, and good evening, members.
This report provides an update on performance
for the third quarter of the year,
covering the 1st of October to the 31st of December,
and this is against the agreed set of key performance indicators that were agreed for this current financial year.
So the overall performance compared to Q2, performance has shown a slight improvement in Quarter 3,
with 39 of the 61 indicators, about 64 % meeting target, compared with 38, which was 62 % in Q2.
The proportion of those indicators within 5 % of target has increased from 14%, which is around 23 % in Q2,
to 15, which is 25 % in Q3.
And off -target indicators fell from nine overall,
which is around 15 % in Q2, to seven,
which is 11 % overall in Q3.
Graph on page 30 of your report pack shows the summary
of the Q3 position across the directorate errors
and the overall position for Q3.
There has been some improvements since Q2.
There are several indicators that were underperforming
in Q2 that recorded improvement in Q3.
Street cleanliness for litter rose from 78 to 87%, though they're still below its 95 % target.
Food premises compliance increased from 91 to 92 % and is within 5 % of the targeted threshold.
Percentage of homelessness duties closed, either presented or relieved, improved from 37 % to 40%,
though it's still below the 43 % target.
And rough sleeping reduced from an average of 18 to 14 individuals.
There has been some areas of consistently strong performance.
Planning applications, all KPIs for this are on target and it should be noted that performance
has been recognised as within the top percentile nationally for planning performance there
for this authority.
Housing benefit process and performance continues to exceed the national averages.
Information governance targets are all on target and there was no reportable ICO data
breaches.
The Lifeline service, 98 % of calls were answered within 60 seconds.
There was also some noted growth -related measures in there as well to do with business start -ups
and supported households receiving the UK Shared Prosperity Fund have both exceeded their annual targets in Q3.
There have been some obviously continued notable pressures in Q3 from Q2,
particularly on temporary accommodation where that's increased from 112 to 121 households
and is obviously above the target that was set.
Bed and breakfast usage again has increased slightly there from 24 to 27 households.
Affordable homes delivery, although Q3 saw an additional 12 completions, the year to
date remains at 32 and it's below the annual target of 80.
The housing landlord service has maintained some strong performance overall as well, but
there was a slight decline compared with Q2.
Q2, there was no reported indicators off target, whereas Q3 reported one off target and several
within 5 % which includes compliance measures for gas safety, EICRs, left inspections and
decent homes as well as EPC raters and current tenant arrears.
A summary of that performance for the housing land or services set out in the cover report
in section 3 .2 and that is on page 31 of your pack.
We have provided some comments tree in the cover report in section 4 which is in page
32 of your report pack on those indicators where they've not met target.
The summary, that's a summary of the performance at Q3 and the report once considered this
will be presented at cabinet on the 25th of March.
We have Adrian Hammond here this evening,
housing strategic manager,
to support with any questions members might have
in relation to strategic housing or homeless,
and we're happy to take any questions.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you very much for that, Gavin.
So I'll open it up for questions, Councillors.
Councillor Martin.
Thank you, Chair.
Another really good report,
I really enjoy reading these KPI reports now,
they're all really clear.
I had two specific ones.
One I think is a question,
there might be a follow up on it,
but did I read correctly that in our recycling,
that the garden waste that's connected in the brown bins
counts towards our recycling figure,
or did I misread the commentary in the report?
Thank you for your comment on that, Councillor Martin.
No, it does contribute to that
as part of the recycling tonnage as well.
That surprised me a little bit.
It never crossed my mind that it would,
but I see that as a quite separate thing,
as you've got green waste coming out of the garden,
and then you've got how do we handle
the more troublesome kind of domestic waste if you like,
where it makes sense for us to be tracking
where the cardboard cans and bottles goes
versus the other stuff that goes into landfill.
And a complete misunderstanding on my part,
but it never crossed my mind that the garden waste
would be counting towards that.
And I wonder whether other people realise that,
because when we quote that kind of 50 % metric,
I wouldn't say it feels like we have,
I mean, maybe that's how it's done nationally.
I don't know, it's never crossed my mind
that that was a thing.
But I think it's a bit odd that you could collect
a few extra Christmas trees
and make your recycling numbers look better.
I'm not saying that's what we're doing,
but it just feels like we're comparing apples
with pears there.
Councillor Praes, I think we'd like to say a few words.
Yeah, I've had the joy of spending seven hours today
in a environment cabinet committee meeting
at Kent County Council, and therefore,
I can come with actual numbers on this.
And there is a different, effectively,
Kent County Council has to pay to dispose of the waste
that we collect, so it's a contract, we usually do so.
And the waste which is general waste
doesn't go to landfill at all, it goes to Ellington,
and it gets burnt for power.
And that's really expensive, we get surcharged for that.
Therefore, what we're trying to do in terms of that
is minimise the amount of stuff which goes to Allington
and gets burnt.
And stuff like our food waste goes to composting,
the green garden waste goes to composting,
recycling collections goes to recycling plant,
gets separated and regraded and stuff like that.
So it is diverted from the general waste stream.
Otherwise, if you're collecting it and sending it
to Allington, it's getting burnt and going up the chimney,
we'd have to pay that additional fee for it
being general waste at that stage.
So that's the separation.
are we being supercharged or it being burnt
near Maidstone and going opportunity
or has it got a recycling stream?
And actually, yes, because it goes to a composter,
it is composted and then that is used,
that's recycling and is diverted from the general waste stream
so yes, it is.
Councillor Lauter.
Yeah, I don't know quite answers my question.
So I understand the split and we should be reducing
the amount of waste that goes off to be combusted.
But presumably the brown bin waste
that comes out of the gardens is just
composted and dealt with separately.
And I wonder whether from a KPI point of view,
the more interesting metric for us to be tracking
is out of that domestic waste,
what percentage of that is having to be combusted
and what percentage of that is being recycled.
but the brown bins are something we charge residents
for separately and for me,
it's a different service and in other times,
people would have composted that themselves.
It's more a revenue line for us.
Okay, Jonathan.
Thank you, Chair and thank you, Councillor.
Just to come back on that,
I think that would be a very good suggestion
that we can pick up on the next item on the agenda,
but we'll definitely take that on board.
Just to note, and in response to Councillor Preeti's comments,
these figures are from KCC.
So they're not ours, we reflect them.
So actually we don't have as much say in that,
but we could definitely have a look to see
what information we get from them.
Thank you very much for the clarification.
Any other questions, Councillor Martin?
I believe there was.
Yeah, it was just, so on the KPI that's looking at
properties that meet the decent homes standard,
I was just curious to know what that,
if it could be in follow up,
but I'd be interested in seeing what that decent
home standard was.
And I noted, I know I've had a few issues
with residence homes recently in Lid,
and I think in the last full council meeting,
a number of councillors raised concerns
about long -standing issues with houses.
And I know that you're always gonna have some houses
that are issues in a stock of houses,
which is kind of fair enough.
But I just, I guess that's what's motivating me
to better understand what that standard is
and just to sense cheque whether that's,
so again, is this a national scale?
And I'd be curious to see how that would fit
with Councillor's views as to what a decent home standard is.
Jonathan.
Thank you, Chan, thank you, Councillor.
Yes, it is a national standard,
it is the decent home standard.
We can share outside of this meeting with you
what that is, I'm gonna send you a link to it.
But we all, as I say, we social housing providers,
local authorities that have social housing
have to meet that decent home standard
or be working towards it.
So the targets we set are measuring how many properties
we currently have that meet that standard.
What is worth noting from the way that we monitor it
is that properties fall out of that standard.
A lot of it is around like sort of shelf life
for kitchens, bathrooms, that kind of thing.
So when something reaches a certain age,
it becomes non -decent and has to be re -inspected.
So you find at the beginning of each year,
we have more properties that are quote unquote failing,
but they need to be re -inspected
and they may or may not need work doing
to bring them up to that standard.
So you work towards that target throughout the year.
But we'll send some information round.
Thank you, thank you very much for that again.
Councillor Wing.
Thank you, Chair.
I've got a number of points.
My first one probably fits in better with item five,
but I found it in item four, so I mention it.
On page 33, page 0U4, affordable homes delivered
by the council and its partners.
I read through the line, I think quite a few
of these affordable homes, actually social homes.
I do think the council is doing themselves
a bit disservice it.
I think the term affordable homes,
they got such a bad rep, I remember back
to the last full council meeting in Councillor Prater,
had to correct a couple of councillors about this.
I would really love to see us counting affordable homes,
i .e. from planning and social homes,
which the council have either bought or built separately,
Because I think social houses, we are doing really well.
We are providing social houses as well, affordable houses.
And general public hate the term.
I mean, what is affordable?
No building a good house, which is in the food,
because nobody able to afford it.
You know, I just feel that I'd love to see
those two separated just to,
because we are doing really well, I think,
on social housing and it's all lost
in this affordable housing.
and perhaps we'll discuss it in item five.
Yeah, I was gonna suggest that actually,
if we could just get a response to Councillor Wing's comment
and then we'll pick that up in the next item as well.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Wing, yes, the figure that you have there
does include all delivery in the district.
The homes that are delivered by the council
aren't actually social housing,
under the government's definition,
they are affordable homes under the government's definition.
That's for the new homes that we produce.
All of our existing stock is delivered at social rents,
but not the new homes that we deliver.
But certainly we can look at splitting out the delivery
that we ourselves make as opposed to homes
that are being delivered by our housing association partners
and other affordable housing providers in the district, if that would help.
Thank you very much for that.
Again, I think that would be useful for us to see those two things,
because the ones we can directly influence
and the others we can indirectly influence,
I think that's Councillor Wing's point, isn't it?
Thank you very much for that.
OK, my next one is about the percentage of streets served aid as clean.
And this seems to be going on since I've been a sit
on this committee, it never reached its top
for some unknown reason, various reasons.
Usually staff vacancies I seem to remember.
I don't know the answer to this really,
because well obviously we're well known
and viola and our partners with that.
I just thought I'd mentioned that
because it's always coming up.
And the only one I do want to mention is page 55,
domestic properties without a valid electric installation
condition report. It says we've fallen because of contractor performance. Can you give me
some more detail on that, please?
There was, thank you, Councillor Wing, with the ones on the ECIR you was mentioning, there
was with the comments we did reflect that there was obviously due to the
period where we was in there was some issue around the performance there in
terms of you know meeting the appointments there. The contractor has obviously been
spoken to on those and sometimes it is necessarily as well in cases where
there's been access issues as well and obviously you can't conduct
certification there as well but what I can say is that you know they have been
addressed and obviously that we do there are sometimes where there are properties
where there are access issues as well,
and they will continue to be booked in,
and that's what the current performance shows as well
as we're going into February.
From what I can see as well, there are some
that we are still having, not the ones obviously
reflection on the Q3 position, but as we are at the moment,
there's always ones where you have controlled access issues
and things as well, and that obviously impacts
on performance there as well.
John, thanks for making us do that,
a supplementary comment on that.
With all those housing compliance ones, the expectation isn't that we are 100 % all the time,
only that we are managing the process correctly and that we know which properties that we still
need to test. As Gavin mentioned, a lot of the time contractors can't access the buildings or
the certificate has expired at that point in time.
It's a changing picture every day.
The team cheque them every week.
We collect figures every month
and we report them to you once a quarter.
So it's a snapshot in time.
So what we can say on these properties,
what we ask for when we challenge the managers is,
have you got appointments booked?
And that's, and then we only count them as being compliant
once the appointments have been done
and certification has been received.
So where there are management issues, that's dealt with through the contract for the electric.
Thank you.
It's just a term contracted to form, so I haven't seen before.
Thank you, Chair.
That's all I've got.
Okay. Any further questions?
The things I had have already been covered.
So we have three recommendations.
The first is to receive a note report C of the 2587, to note the corporate housing performance
report Q3 at appendix 1, and to note the housing performance report Q3 at appendix 2.
So can I have a proposer for that, please?
It's Councillor Wing and a seconder.
Councillor Martin.
And all those in favour?
And that's unanimous.
Thank you, Councillor.

5 Draft KPIs and targets 2026-27

Okay, so we've got item five, which is draught KPIs and targets 2026 -27.
And this is report OS, oblique 25, oblique 16.
I'll hand over to Jonathan Hicks.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
I think this report comes as a result of exactly the kind of discussion that we've been having
in these committee meetings where members have suggested,
or given their thoughts and feedback on the KPIs,
we felt it was warranted that we bring a session here.
And we chose a particularly quiet session,
which normally we've got quite a lot of reports,
haven't we, coming to the meeting.
And what I think I'll do is just explain
a little bit of background,
just so you're aware of what we normally do
and why we're doing something slightly different.
I've put everything in the cover report there.
So if you look on page 62,
I've said that we,
as part of the annual performance reporting cycle,
we review and agree the KPIs
that will be monitored during the forthcoming year.
The reason we do this is that it presents an opportunity
to assess the effectiveness of those measures
and the suitability of the targets.
Go on to say about the consultation
that KPIs are developed by officers
and are typically informed by industry best practise
or regulatory requirements.
There was scope to broaden that to other measures
that reflect the council services
and strategic priorities.
Now last year, we did quite a lot of work,
if you remember, around developing
a new performance management framework
and setting up these two new bespoke reports,
one just for the housing service
and one really just to cover all the services that we manage.
The KPIs are agreed by corporate leadership team every year
before they're coming to committee
and cabinet for formal adoption.
And as part of the terms of reference of this committee,
and I'm gonna quote part of it,
that the committee may scrutinise
the council's performance against KPIs
and make recommendations as appropriate to the cabinet
or overview and scrutiny committee particularly
considering the proposed performance targets
for the coming year.
So that there is scope there to feedback on those.
However, we felt that it would be valuable
in your role of scrutinising us
that you have the opportunity
to look at the measures as well.
caveat that we are not intending to make any sweeping changes. Given all the work
that we did last year to put all these in place, we don't want to change it all.
We've got some very good robust measures. There are a few that I think we can
perhaps improve upon and in hindsight perhaps we can tweak. They
perhaps don't reflect exactly what we want. So appended to the report is the
set of KPIs we have and it's an early draught.
So this isn't what you'd normally see in June,
which is an almost finished copy for you to sign off.
This is an early draught with some thoughts around
ones we might want to change and some suggestions
as to what they may be.
And we welcome your feedback on those,
which we will take back to officers for their discussion.
So happy to open it up for feedback.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you Jonathan. So, open it up to the floor. Any questions please?
Councillor Wing. Thank you, Chair. The first one I've got on page 69, it's the one about fly tipping.
Obviously you're altering the wording of it from average days to remove fly tip waste,
and to the number of reports fly tipping per period. I presume the period, what is that called per period?
Correct, yes, so these are all quarterly reports, but however we record it or capture it internally,
we'll report the quarterly position.
Yes, it's just, we'd say period because it then covers it if we're reporting it from
over the month or the year, for example.
But that is just a suggestion.
Fly tipping is one that comes up quite often for debate.
And we also recognise that the measure that we currently have,
average days to remove fly -in -tick waste,
I feel that we would need to look in
to get a bit more detail around that,
to present a meaningful KPI to you and to our own managers.
So we're taking that back to the team to say,
well, how can we improve that?
What data can we have to support that?
And the simplest thing is just to log the number of cases
that we have, that would be a good start.
So that's our first intention,
but if we can work up a better KPI,
then we will do that too.
Yeah, I understand the conflict of fire tipping,
who's is, you know, I'm sure you might want to talk
about fire tipping again.
The other one is the, well, the elephant in the room,
shall we say, page 71 is when we're talking about
moving the targets for the average number of households
in temporary accommodation,
and also the average number of households
in bed and breakfast.
What's the logical, you mean one of them's in live doubled?
I mean, I know we're not meeting those targets,
are they not achievable,
so we just have to double them, or what's the reason?
Adrian's just disappeared,
so I can't get him to answer the question.
But he said to put forward the suggestions there to reflect the current levels.
As you know from the reports and you'll see from this Q3 report,
that position has been increasing over the year.
And the target we set last year, we've not met once.
So the targets need to be there for us to aim for.
Obviously, we don't want to have something that is so easy that we're always green.
but we want to have something we can aim for,
but it's always gonna be red, it has to be realistic.
And I think the target we've set there 120,
current level is 129, so we're already ahead
above what we want it to be.
So it gives us something that is meaningful
and we think is achievable given the current situation
that we have for template accommodation.
Okay, I'll just finish.
I think it was Tolstoy who said targets should be there,
not to reach but use as a signpost or white grey marker
so we know the direction we're heading in.
That's all I'll say there.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Martin.
Thank you, Chair.
Fly to it.
No, actually, I'll back up.
This is excellent, so thank you also
for bringing this to us at an early stage.
And over the last couple of years, actually,
we've had some really good conversations around KPIs,
and I really appreciate, you always listen to our feedback,
you always discuss it with us,
and these reports are excellent, superb.
And following all of the hard work that you did last year,
they're in really good shape,
and I don't have lots of questions, really.
But to pick up on your kind offer of,
talking about my favourite subject of fly tipping.
I think you're probably alluding to this
when you're saying you're gonna look at this
a little bit more and I appreciate
we're not gonna be able to capture all of this,
but in my ideal world, I would like us
to be reporting the total numbers split by
public land and private land so that we get to see
the size of the problem that our residents see.
So we're only responsible for dealing with one part of it,
but I think it's good for us to acknowledge
and be aware of the wider problem.
I appreciate the fact that you might not want to do this,
but if we're showing days taken to remove the,
waste from public lands
there is a part of me that
would like to see something similar
on non -public land, private lands.
I know we don't have any control over that but that is what residents see
and as we've discussed before if something is on the side of the road rather than on it
or deemed to be on private land it's still seen by people
and it's still considered to be a bit of a scourge.
And just because you track it doesn't mean to say
you have to take action directly on everything,
but I think it is a better reflection
of the overall problem, which leads to my next point,
which is around is there a KPI we can have
around the enforcement activity?
So I know for enforcement activity, we will do that on public and private land.
It's just we won't take it away if it's on private land.
But is there something we can have around how quickly we go out to report, sorry, to
look into flight tipping that's being reported, whether that's on public or private land.
And then I'm interested in enforcements that take place.
And I noticed that under, I can't remember where,
but earlier in the report we've got CPNs
and it says including prosecutions for fly tipping.
And I don't know whether this is horrible to do,
but I wonder whether in situations like that,
whether it's possible to take the relevant bit of that KPI
and move it to the section,
So that when you're having a conversation
around fly tipping, you get to see the whole picture
of fly tipping, including the CPNs relating to fly tipping,
rather than them being incorporated
in a more general section further up the report.
Interesting thoughts.
Thank you, Councillor Martin.
I'll take that last point first
before it goes out of my head.
All very logical.
So I'll take that back to the teams.
I think you're right that we do capture the prosecutions
and enforcement.
I think it's set out like this
because it's managed by different team.
But there was certain logic around noting how many
related to fly tipping in the section
that is for fly tipping.
But with all the comments,
I think we can take them to the offices
and see what data that they've got.
And let you know.
Thank you.
Again, I think that's so important because the public are looking for the polluter to pay, aren't they?
I mean, that in essence is what they're looking for for all this.
So I think they want to make sure that we are not, we're only dealing with those things that, you know,
are on the land that we're in control of and that we're not paying for other things
which should be paid for through that enforcement process.
So I think it's...
Council Proctor.
Thank you. I'm absolutely not speaking to this item, just asking some challenge of fellow
members of this. So, I certainly take, and when this comes forward to cabinet and future
conversations with Jonathan and Gavin, certainly take John Wing's point on, I think the description
of affordable is difficult within that, because that council has this, we're building council
houses, and then that line where it says that and there are false national rent, it should
I would say so, so that there isn't that difficulty
in understanding, as you said, there was some confusion
at the last recent council meeting,
which I attempted to diffuse, I'm not sure I did.
But we'll see the go there.
I think what I'd be interested to know is
the number of council meetings over the last few,
over the years.
Let's take, yes, the last meeting's example.
This is the customer access strategy,
or something that we discussed and how residents,
businesses, anyone contacts the council,
how they do that through different mechanisms,
how they contact us through the website, phone,
it's not just website, but isn't it?
But there are no metrics in here at all
about how well we're managing that and the council.
Now, in the olden days, it used to be,
how many phone calls do you answer within 30 seconds?
Well, I think that's the wrong metric
because we don't want them to phone.
If you do phone, we give them a recorded message,
first telling them that there are different ways
of doing this which are more effective.
So it's not about phone answering metric.
But there is something in there about,
in terms of our understanding whether we're doing
the customer access strategy right,
how are we responding to those customers?
And this is me spitballing, I don't have an answer to this,
I'm not suggest leading the direction,
but it is for this committee to make some suggestions
and gives some guidance to all of us,
because we're all spitballing a bit on it,
what would be useful to understand
we are doing the customer access thing well?
Because clearly a number of councillors
thought that we weren't at full council two weeks ago.
They thought that there were issues there.
What do we need to see?
What does this committee need to see once a quarter
to give itself reassurance or non -reassurance
that actually we are doing that job right?
I think there are a couple of other areas
that we could look at as well
in terms of the performance of the council
of big things that we are currently taking forward.
The temporary accommodation piece is one thing around that.
We said we're gonna spend five million pounds
on X million units over, on X million, that's good,
X units over the course of next year
so that we've increased our temporary housing stock
from A to B.
But we actually haven't written down what A and B are.
And that's not a KPI at the moment.
How many temporary accommodation units we own
at the beginning of this year, this financial year,
at the end of this financial year,
that's actually something we've got a target for.
We've put money aside for it.
I don't know that you're going to know
whether we get there or not in these reports.
FOCA might be another one as well,
just committed to a 13 million pound capital spend
and getting the thing open at some point in 2028.
I think that would take some flexible drafting
to get the thing open and medical centre in there
and stuff like that.
But how do you know between now and 2028?
could you make that box not a black box
in terms of we keep putting the money in
and at some stage it will open,
but knowing that we're actually seeing some measurables
coming out of there?
And I don't know, and that's gonna be a huge challenge
for both Jonathan and Gavin,
I don't know what those metrics are
in terms of the river in that,
but it would be useful to know that it was working,
or at least to have the warning sign
that no something has gone terribly wrong here.
We have just discovered that this building is,
it's got a problem, it's gonna make this slower,
or with medical centres in or out or up or down
or NHS haven't signed off again and delayed it.
So I think it's about the piece that I was interested in
is where the council have made these things.
Are these KPIs actually, are some of these KPIs
reflecting those wider, broader pieces of work?
How could we make them so that they can give you
and then reassure the rest of council that yeah,
they're fine or you really want to look at this.
Jonathan, over to you.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Councillor Pritchard.
A lot to come back on from that.
I'll start with strategic projects, I think.
A lot of the work that we've done in the last year
is to separate out key performance indicators from the kind of bigger corporate projects like
FALCA, for example, which are reported through the corporate plan and an action plan.
And most of the KPIs are kind of the business as usual cyclical reported stuff.
So there was an argument for saying, we'll keep it with those.
and perhaps there's project management involved in,
and project board involved in projects as well.
I'm not saying we can't consider whether a KPI
would be useful.
With customer access strategy,
that's a very good suggestion.
We always have lots of new pieces of work that come out
that if we're going to start measuring,
members might and the public might have an interest
in seeing.
We have metrics internally that we, the team, look at for customer service.
The question there is what is the most appropriate ones that link to the strategy that would be helpful to members.
And as a starting point, we can certainly share some that we currently measure because it's easier to start reporting stuff that we already measure,
particularly if it links up to that strategy.
So they're my first couple of thoughts.
but otherwise I'll listen to the recording and if there's anything else I need to feedback,
perhaps we can put in some time.
Alan, thank you.
Thank you, Chair, through you.
So I think a couple of points I would raise is that there are other reporting mechanisms.
So in terms of FOCA, there are capital reporting, so every quarter this committee will see the
progress on that.
Also as it goes through the actual capital scheme, there will be various reports that
come back to this committee or to cabinet for them to be updated on progress, make key
decisions, obviously at stage one at the moment, we'll go out to the second stage of that again,
we'll come back as a report and then we will measure against those capital programmes as
we go forward in terms of the, I can't remember what the other area was, my brain's gone.
So in terms of TA again we have the HRI reporting.
The actual premise of that original five million was 20 properties based on these figures.
But as we go throughout the year in terms of HRI reporting we will see we'll report on number
of new purchases, number of acquisitions and there can be a specific element in there in terms
of to say against this five million this is where we are.
So there are other mechanisms, it is not necessary that this is the right place for that sort
of reporting and that sort of target.
That is the point I would put back to committee.
Thank you Paul.
I kind of agree with you.
I would like to reflect a little bit on some of the points
you raised and I wonder if it's something we can come back
to, it doesn't have to be formally in a meeting,
I guess we can all work together on this.
But there's something really valuable about having
really clear, visible KPIs and certainly when I'm banging
on about fly tipping, the thing that I always have
in my mind is, does the KPI we're reporting out on
reflect what people see?
And I think you know you've got a good KPI
if people can't really question it.
But if someone looks at a KPI and then has the view,
well, that doesn't happen around my neck of the woods,
then you know there's something wrong with the KPI.
And so I think, I'm always thinking,
would a counsellor, would a resident, would an officer
or be able to look at that KPI and agree that that's a fair factual representation of where we're at.
And if there's a slight disconnect there, then they're not quite right.
On the point on, and so Adam just touched on this,
so on the bigger projects, I think there would be a benefit of finding a...
It could just be how things are presented,
because the big strategic projects will get reported out in big strategic reports,
which are very wordy and they're interesting and etc etc.
But there is something nice about a KPI.
And I, you know, so maybe to Alan's point,
maybe it doesn't sit in quite the same performance metrics,
but maybe it's the same style that is used for us to have a bit of a dashboard
that gives us all clarity on where those big strategic projects are.
with a traffic light and an arrow and everything.
But you know, it does make a difference.
And I think that way of simplistically reporting,
even very large complex projects,
will help us I think, Tim, when we're in the chamber.
And you can quickly point to the fact that,
well actually here are our strategic projects
and they're all on green,
or actually we can all agree that this one's on red.
But I think that would be helpful for everyone actually.
So maybe that's something we can consider.
Thank you Chair Priti.
So yeah, I think I'm more than happy to look at that in terms of signposting
and perhaps providing more clarity in terms of where we are in the case.
But I probably suggest capital report is the appropriate place for that.
But I'm very happy to look at that and actually come up with something
that I think will give you that information that you need.
Thank you.
Any more questions?
So, I just got a couple if I may.
So, just on the custom access side,
we know that our percentage of residents with my account is increasing.
I think it's sort of slowing down a little bit at this moment in time, isn't it?
And therefore, the mechanism that people have to use that
and then to use the reporting tool
It is something that is, which will help us, I think, to understand in terms
of the mechanisms we offer residents to communicate issues with us.
We would know, you know, are we getting it about right because of the people
who are actually finding things out for themselves, you know, reporting things themselves
without coming to counsellors and doing it, for example.
So again, I think that would be useful to understand how we might be able to do that.
and report that in the future.
I do have one question on Appendix 1 of the report.
It's on page 74, actually, and it's EPC01.
And in there, we've got a target which is associated with properties
with the known EPC of Grade C or above,
and then we're suggesting 80 percent,
which is what the current target is, 25, 26.
We're suggesting that for 26, 27.
Then we're suggesting 85 percent for 27, 28,
and 90 percent for 28, 29.
So my question is, are those increases supported
by the appropriate financing to allow those EPC ratings
in our properties to be achieved?
Is there a direct link between the two?
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
I can't answer the finance part of it, but I believe that the team suggested these because
it's all built into the housing plan, housing asset management plan, and what they've got
in terms of their sort of retrofitting over the next few years.
So they're aiming to look at the number of properties a year so they can sort of calculate
if they work at this rate, they should be able to achieve this target.
If I may, because that's important for us because that also ties in with our carbon reduction programme
and all those other things as well, so it's got a knock on for all of those.
So thank you very much for that, I appreciate that.
Do we have any other questions? No?
Okay, so the recommendations for members is to receive a note report, OS of leak 25,
leak 16, and to review the draughts at the KPIs and targets of 2026 -27,
present an appendix 1 and provide comment and feedback to officers, which I think we've done.
So again, I just invited a proposer for that, Councillor Martin, and a seconder, Councillor Wing.
All those in favour?
And that's unanimous, thank you.
So that concludes our business at 1857.
Thank you very much for your input tonight, and thank you very much for the officers
for the production of the reports.
It makes life so much easier for us when you get reports of this quality.
It really does.
Thank you very much, and I appreciate it.
Okay, meeting's closed.
Thank you.