Cabinet considered the report regarding the 2020/21 End of Year Data & Performance Report

The Cabinet Member for Corporate & Resident Services, Culture & Heritage and Windsor informed Cabinet that in July 2020 Cabinet approved a new Interim Council Strategy 2020/21 for immediate adoption on the basis that the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly altered the context in which the council is currently operating.

The Interim Council Strategy clarifies the three revised priorities to which the council is responding.  The three revised priorities for 2020/21 were:

·        Covid-19 objectives: focusing on the immediate response, long-term recovery, and new service requirements.

·        Interim Focus Objectives 2020-21: focusing on revised service operating plans, development of the Transformation Strategy, Climate Strategy, Governance, and People Plan.

·        Revised Medium Term Financial Strategy: focusing on the impact of Covid-19, economic downturn, and government policy.

All performance reports for Q2 2020/21 onwards had been refocused to provide insights into the Interim Council Strategy’s three priorities and how they were progressing.

The global pandemic has been life-changing for many and our thoughts with those families affected.  As a council our response to the pandemic has been to protect our residents and the vulnerable this has been achieved particularly by galvanizing the community in action, together to work and support those needing help and clinically vulnerable officially there were eight thousand shielding but many more needed help 76 incredible community-based initiatives arose to help across whole borough and they must be highly commended.  The council strategically facilitated this with practical and financial help, a new database Leon was developed by the council and this was crucial to the council's success of this response £45,000 pounds was given to local groups

Supporting vulnerable individuals and families and the further £230,000 pounds was distributed through food vouchers over the Christmas holidays, winter half term and easter holidays supporting 2037 children. Credit goes to the Democratic Team who arranged hundreds of meetings virtually allowing better engagement.   We also had a number of champions who allowed important Covid messages to reach our residents.  The leisure centres were brilliant in dealing with a lateral flow testing giving residents another extra layer of protection and ensuring the virus is detected quickly.

The council worked across the Thames alley authorities and organizations to determine the best practices for the Royal Borough recovery strategy which was approved in September 2020. The library and customer service supported superbly with over 20 000 phone calls made to vulnerable residents many other services work long and difficult hours delivering their services to residents at the time of a global pandemic. There is still a lot of work continuing these areas as we slowly open up but the community resilience has given way to a new model of working and improving culture.

The impact of Covid on the community and the economy has been felt in a number of areas of the council’s operations, and this has been reflected in the council’s key performance indicators A key issue across the borough has been the disruption to household waste and recycling collections. The impact on residents has had a knock-on effect on the volume of calls to the customer contact centre.  The council continues to work with its contractor to improve the service and bring in strategies to help with climate change.

Despite these challenges, with one exception, all performance indicators are on or near target at the end of the year, of particular note is the sustained improvement in the average number of days to process new claims and changes in circumstances for Housing Benefits, the increase in household waste sent for reuse and recycling compared to previous annual outturns, and the high volumes of households where the prevention duty has been ended successfully. There was an increase in people requiring temporary accommodation as a result of central government’s “Everyone In” requirement and the wider impact of Covid-19 on homelessness.  The indicators and any remedial actions had been via our O&S Panels. 

Cllr Werner mentioned that due to the pandemic it was acceptable that not all targets would be met, however he mentioned that climate change was in the new interim council plan yest he had been contacted by a number of stakeholders who felt there had been no engagement of the climate change strategy and he asked how this could be improved.

The reporting Cabinet Member that the climate change was part of the interim strategy and a lot had been achieved.  Cllr Stimson mentioned that £1.2 million of funding had been achieved for school and public buildings, that two new officers were in post, that there was 5 stockholders on the working group and all 80 stockholders would be contacted as we move onto the next stages.

Resolved unanimously:  that  Cabinet notes the report and:

i)             Notes the End of Year Data & Performance Report in Appendix A.

ii)           Notes the intention to continue to deliver performance reports in their current format until such time as the new Corporate Plan and associated performance management framework is in place.

iii)         Delegates responsibility to Directors in conjunction with Cabinet Members to review and amend targets for existing measures as appropriate.

iv)         Requests relevant Cabinet Members, Directors and Heads of Service to maintain focus on performance.