To consider the report.

Adele Taylor, Executive Director of Resources, explained that the Q4 performance report was responding to the councils strategy and was effectively a progress update against the interim strategy. Of the nine targets in the report:

·         Four were green – succeeding or achieved.

·         Three were amber – near target.

·         Two were red – needed improvement.

It had been a challenging year to meet the needs of residents during the global pandemic. Covid had a significant impact on the performance of the council, for example lockdown restrictions had affected the number of visits to libraires. Home based learning had been encouraged and there were increases in visits starting to be seen but these were at lower volumes. The number of calls which had been received by RBWM had increased substantially in Q2 due to the waste problems, with the target of the percentage of calls answered within 60 seconds finishing amber. The revenues and benefits targets had exceeded the expected position, but the percentage of business rates collected had been impacted.

The Chairman commented on the targets for the percentage of calls answered and the number of digital forms received. He asked what metric was used by officers to show that residents queries were being dealt with and if residents were satisfied with the response that they received. The Chairman also asked if there was anything that was a concern to officers or if the general performance of RBWM was good.

Adele Taylor said that the website system was being worked on and improved. For the digital forms, it was something that officers wanted to improve, particularly to see if there were a number of repeat requests from residents. Responding to the question from the Chairman if there was anything to be concerned about, Adele Taylor said that there was a dip in performance in Q3 but this was to be expected. It had been a challenging year for the revenues and benefits team with some of the targets being particularly difficult to achieve.

The Chairman asked if RBWM had a good contact management system.

Adele Taylor said that there was a contact management system but work was ongoing to improve it.

Councillor Hill asked if performance reports in future would contain metrics against RBWMs net carbon pledge using the climate strategy and would it be aligned to the corporate plan. He also asked if Cabinet would be open to recommendations from the Panel on what metrics should be used to monitor performance going forwards.

Adele Taylor said that for the climate strategy, the metrics fell under a different Overview and Scrutiny Panel. The metrics would be on the new corporate plan and officers would be reviewing metrics to ensure that they reflected the performance and development of the corporate plan.

Councillor Hill asked if there was any further breakdown on digital forms and how often they were used by each department. The search bar on the website was not working as well as it should and was something that needed to be investigated. Councillor Hill commented that he felt the council was moving to ‘digital by default’ rather than ‘digital by choice’ and this was locking some residents out of services that the council provided. On voluntary turnover, Councillor Hill asked if this was known by department or area and if there were any red flags for voluntary turnover in any part of the council.

Adele Taylor said that a lot of work had been undertaken on the website, the search bar issue had been fixed recently and the function should now be performing better. It was a priority of RBWM to make systems quick, easy and effective to use and it was a continual improvement. Adele Taylor was unable to give a breakdown of the digital forms but all areas of the council were encouraged to use them. Adele Taylor said that she was happy to discuss with Councillor L Jones outside of the meeting.

Nikki Craig, Head of HR, Corporate Projects and IT, said that staff turnover could be broken down further but this would not necessarily highlight the problems that RBWM faced. The information was shared at directorate level and it was scrutinised with the councils HR business partner.

ACTION – Nikki Craig to send breakdown of staff turnover to the Panel.

Councillor Rayner, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Corporate & Resident Services, Culture & Heritage, and Windsor, confirmed that the search engine issue on the website had been resolved. A new user group had been set up to test the website and this would include representatives from the Disability and Inclusion Forum and other groups that the council worked with. Regarding the discussion on staff turnover, it could often fluctuate. For example, students joining the council during the summer months on short term internships would affect the turnover figure.

Councillor Sharpe asked if officers had done any analysis comparing RBWM with other local authorities. He asked what the metric was that was used to measure visits to libraries and whether this was physically based or included digital visits too.

Adele Taylor said that benchmarking against other local authorities depended on if they used similar metrics. Other comparisons were more difficult as information was collected in a different way. Officers had largely been concentrating on the councils own performance. Library visits included both physical and digital visits across the whole year.

Councillor Sharpe expressed concern for a completely digital library experience and feared that some residents could be left behind.

Adele Taylor said that libraries formed a key part of the transformation strategy, where there was a piece specifically looking at digital exclusion. The council was looking to support and help people using digital devices if they needed it.

Councillor Bowden joined the meeting.

Councillor Werner asked which targets had not been hit for non-Covid reasons. He commented on the climate change strategy of the council, which discussed working with key stakeholders, but they did not feel like they were part of the process. Councillor Werner expressed concern about the digital divide and said it worried him when organisations said that they would help to bridge the gap, explaining that he had seen a negative experience occur with a customer in his local bank branch.

Adele Taylor said that she did not think there were any targets that had not been achieved for non-Covid reasons. Sustainability was not in the remit of the Panel and so could not commented on but this could be fed back to officers. The council were committed to helping residents access online services as some would need extra support. The internet could open up a new world for some residents and it was important to concentrate resources on allowing residents to access the internet.

Councillor Haseler said that he used digital forms to report issues with things like waste. He had noted that the council set a target for the number of forms received, but surely this meant that a number of things were going wrong or that there were a number of issues. He said that less forms being received could actually be a positive thing.

Adele Taylor said that there was a blend of different forms which had different functions. Some covered issues, like Councillor Hasler had suggested, but there were also forms covering things like requests for information or access to services. It was the level of customer interaction which the council were interested in monitoring, with digital forms a key way to measure this.

Councillor Haseler said it would be useful to see a breakdown of the forms received for issues so that officers could see if the forms were more positive or negative in nature.

Councillor Werner said that some residents had complained to him that the ‘report it’ tool was hard to use and they had abandoned the process part way through. He asked if there was a measure for how many forms were abandoned before they had been submitted.

Adele Taylor said that the transformation project team had been looking extensively at the website and digital forms. She would ask the relevant officers regarding the questions on digital forms and report back to the Panel after the meeting.

ACTION – Adele Taylor to ask about the digital form enquires from Councillor Hasler and Councillor Werner and report back to the Panel.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel noted the report and:

i)             Noted the 2020/21 Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel End of Year Data & Performance Report in Appendix A.

ii)            Requested relevant Cabinet Members, Directors and Heads of Service to maintain focus on improving performance.