To consider the report.

Rachel Kinniburgh, Service Lead – Strategic Policy, Performance & Insights, said that this was the first performance report against the RBWM Corporate Plan. The report considered performance up until May 2022. Following the adoption of the Plan, officers across the council had identified measures and milestones which reflected progress against the 50 goals.

 

The criteria developed by the Strategy, Policy and Performance Team to govern the compilation of the Panel’s reports was set out in the report, considering areas of progress and concern along with the direction of travel. The first report had been compiled based on direction of travel alone. Each of the three corporate plan objectives were set out in the report with their respective areas of concern and progress. On the whole, the position was broadly healthy, with 15 goals making significant progress and four goals where there were some areas of concern.

 

With the ‘council trusted to deliver’ objective principally focused on satisfaction, trust and feeling that the council delivered value for money, it was noted that operational service delivery was likely to influence these areas and so more data around service delivery would be published on the Citizens Portal. Rachel Kinniburgh encouraged Panel Members to engage with the team throughout the summer to share their thoughts on what could be included.

 

The Chairman thanked all officers that had been involved in the work that had been undertaken to improve reporting and identify criteria. He felt this would be a good way of monitoring performance and targets.

 

Councillor Walters commented on the A308 study which was ‘successfully completed’. He felt that it had not been completed successfully and was three years late, there had been significant impacts as a result on the village of Bray.

 

The Chairman said that it was completed successfully, although the timetable of the study was something that came under the Panel’s remit with monitoring and performance.

 

Councillor Walters felt that the result of the study was disappointing.

 

Councillor Sharpe said that the report was an important piece of work. He asked where issues may appear looking to the future, over the next few months.

 

Rachel Kinniburgh said that there was nothing significant which was causing concern at the moment. The areas of concern outlined in the report had insightful narrative which had been provided by officers. This was the first report, there were a number of measures where data was still being sourced or where there was limited data available.

 

Councillor L Jones noted that some of the goals had a target in the narrative while others had the target in the commentary. She asked if it was possible for a target box to be included to show Panel Members clearly what the target was and when it was due to be reached by. Councillor L Jones agreed with the comments made about the A308, the study had only got to the first stage and the council were now considering options. The Biodiversity Action Plan was not yet complete as it was being considered by Cabinet in November 2022, while the Windsor public realm project included appointing a contractor. The tender had been put out but no decision had yet been made. Councillor L Jones commented on targets which were outside of the council, she was unsure of how value could be added on these targets. More narrative on these targets could be useful.

 

Rachel Kinniburgh said that the structure and format could be evolved based on feedback. More detail would be made available through the portal. The team would take the comments away from the meeting and have a look at what could be improved.

 

Councillor Price said that there were three priorities which were considered to be making sufficient progress currently. However, she felt that these should still be monitored, she asked if the priorities could be brought out further in the report. Councillor Price said that while she was considering the report, she found that she referred to the corporate plan, the citizens portal and the report. She felt it would be easier if the corporate plan was taken as the base template, and everything else fell into the same order as the plan.

 

When looking at the citizens portal, there was very little data to currently look at, more data on past performance would be very useful. She agreed with comments from other Panel Members on targets being completed when they had only been partially completed. Councillor Price said that there was a target to meet national guidelines on air pollution, however the council had only met one of the ten targets on air pollution. There was no mention of the climate partnership.

 

Emma Duncan, Monitoring Officer and Deputy Director of Law & Governance, said that if targets were not being met, Panel Members had the opportunity to raise queries around these during the meeting.

 

The Chairman said it was important that Members satisfised themselves with the answers given by officers. After the meeting, Members could contact officers to request amendments be made.

 

Councillor Price said there were a number of air quality pollutants, but the council was only measuring itself against one of them. She asked why the council was not measuring itself against all of the national targets.

 

James Thorpe, Sustainability & Climate Change Lead, said that air pollution sat with the Environmental Protection team. The solar purchasing scheme launch was complete, with emails of offers recently going out.

 

Councillor Price said that she disappointed that there were no officers available to answer queries on air pollution. When building took place, this caused emissions and there was a lot of building planned to take place in the borough. This was shown as a straight line in the data which Councillor Price suggested was not realistic.

 

James Thorpe mentioned the environment and climate strategy which had a target of net zero by 2050, this was not a straight line trajectory. There was an aim for a 50% reduction by 2025, 75% by 2030 and 88% by 2035. On the citizens portal, the trajectory was a straight line until 2025 but this did not reflect the long term aim. On planning policy, the majority of new buildings would be net zero, especially in the South West Maidenhead area. A climate and sustainability Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) would be brought forward in due course, to stop a big increase in admissions from building work.

 

Councillor Price commented on the SPD, this had been delayed and it was not obvious to the Panel. She asked when the SPD would be completed.

 

James Thorpe said that it was being worked on with planning colleagues, it was acknowledged that it was behind schedule. Some external support would be brought in to accelerate the document, no timescale on completion could be given.

 

Councillor Price said that the Biodiversity Action Plan was 12 months overdue, climate was meant to be a priority but everything seemed to be delayed.

 

James Thorpe said that a draft of the Biodiversity Action Plan had been completed but more consultation was needed. A short term delay meant that the plan could be a success, it was important that residents engaged with the consultation.

 

Councillor Price suggested that taking time to do things properly often led to better results. She had suggested initially that the Biodiversity Action Plan should have gone out for more consultation, this was now what was happening.

 

The Chairman said that biodiversity came under completed on the table, it would be useful to have an accurate or best estimate timetable.

 

Rachel Kinniburgh said that to get the system set up, a blanket April 2022 start date for projects needed to be added. These would be updated as the system progressed.

 

Councillor Davies commented on the nitrogen dioxide concentration across the Maidenhead AQMA. There was no empirical explanation for this, there had been an increase in other AQMAs since lockdown therefore there was no room for complacency. Full Council had agreed to review the air quality action plan in light of the new World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance on air pollution levels, which were lower than national guidelines. This topic was due to be considered by Communities Overview & Scrutiny Panel prior to the reorganisation of scrutiny, she asked where this could be considered.

 

The Chairman suggested that officers could refer the item to overview and scrutiny as appropriate to look at the implementation of the air quality monitoring.

 

Emma Duncan said that air quality could be explored by the Place Overview & Scrutiny Panel, Panel Members could refer it to the Panel if they chose to.

 

Councillor G Jones said that the citizens portal had the potential to turn into a huge database which took a huge amount of time to update and maintain. He asked if

other councils were using a similar tool to track progress.

 

Emma Duncan said that it was a standard approach for all councils, data was important to understand whether targets were being achieved. RBWM had a more proactive way of monitoring targets, officers could intervene if things were not performing as expected. This was a particular advantage of the data being real time, rather than past data. It was also a good way of showing the public what was happening and was therefore a transparent way of sharing performance.

 

Rachel Kinniburgh added that targets brought clarity to objectives and the council made promises to residents, reporting performance showed that the council was keeping them. The reporting gap between the data and scrutiny meetings could also be kept relatively small, making the data more relevant.

 

Councillor Story said that the performance reporting and the citizens portal were excellent pieces of work, he passed on his thanks to officers. He said it was difficult to comment without knowing the concerns of residents, he wanted to see what residents were saying about the performance of the council. Councillor Story asked what the concerns of residents were and how long was it taking to resolve any concerns that had been raised. A large number of services were outsourced, Councillor Story requested that the performance of contractors was also included.

 

Councillor Story asked if the citizens portal was interactive, could residents add comments to the platform, for example. Councillor Story said that some of the data supplied was a couple of years out of date, the data needed to be up to date for the platform to fully work. Councillor Story concluded by commenting that on two of the main goals, there were no areas of concern and Councillor Story asked what conclusions could be drawn from this.

 

Emma Duncan said that the council needed to ask residents what they thought of council services, this could be used to determine whether the council was ‘trusted to deliver its promises’. This was being worked on and the data was currently light in this area. RBWM Together was an engagement platform which could be used to gain feedback from residents. Some datasets only received data on a yearly basis, so this was old data but it was the best and most up to date data available.

 

Rachel Kinniburgh confirmed that residents were unable to engage through the citizens portal, but RBWM Together was used as a collaboration space across a number of different services. There were a broad range of measures on the citizens portal, with a wide variety of reporting frequencies. Some data was only available nationally on a yearly basis, all other local authorities were in a similar position.

 

Emma Duncan added that it was important that adequate data was provided to Members so that they could challenge the performance. Performance indicators would need to be developed to fit around the data that was available, officers trusted the data which was being put in front of the Panel.

 

Councillor Walters referred back to the discussion on the SPD and the 50% reduction in emissions by 2025. He asked what the 50% reduction was referring to.

 

James Thorpe clarified it was 50% of the borough’s carbon emissions, as published by the government. This was based on the 2018/19 baseline figure.

 

Councillor Bond commented on issues like vegetation growing over highways, this could fall under cycling and walking targets or customer services targets in the performance monitoring. If there was no budget, it was a financial issue, which again could appear in three areas of the citizens portal. He was happy to discuss the issue after the meeting with officers.

 

The Chairman said that this should initially be discussed with the Cabinet Member to understand why specific issues were not being dealt with in the first instance. This would then help to determine if it was a budget matter or not, and if required could then be considered at a scrutiny meeting.

 

Councillor Bond said that he had followed some issues through and discovered that areas were missing from the contract, so that the work did not get done.

 

Emma Duncan said that the ‘council trusted to deliver its promises’ objective would allow Members to see where residents felt that services were not at the level they felt they should be. A new caseworker system would be introduced in the autumn which would allow Members to raise queries directly.

 

Adele Taylor, Executive Director of Resources, said that the customer service strategy piece of work had a number of strands which identified a number of gaps and looked to identify data which could be collected.

 

Councillor G Jones said that he had been looking at the number of active adults in the borough through the citizens portal, when the ‘more information’ button was clicked, there was no further information or data. He asked where the 70.8% figure had therefore come from.

 

Rachel Kinniburgh said that target trajectories were available in the majority of cases, but some metrics were subject to baselining. The long term intention was to refine measures, in the short term the user would have to work harder to find the target trajectories in the portal, where they existed. This was due to current platform limitations, there was a limit to the number of future dates which could be displayed on the first page. The team had to decide to include either past data and part of the trajectory, or the whole trajectory and no past data. The whole trajectory had been decided upon to show where the council was going. To see all of the data, Councillor G Jones would need to click on the calendar and increase the date range.

 

Councillor G Jones said that on other metrics, it said ‘awaiting data’. He felt this was more honest than not showing the full data set.

 

Michael Shepherd, Sport & Leisure Service Manager, said that the figure came from Sport England Active Lives data. This was the 2018/19 figure for RBWM, with a lag over Covid.

 

The Chairman said that air quality was on the Place Overview & Scrutiny Panel work programme, he suggested that this was the appropriate place to discuss the item in further detail.

 

Councillor Price said that it was important that there was a tight remit when things were referred to other Panels.

 

The Chairman said that the Chairman of the Place Overview & Scrutiny Panel would be referred to the minutes of this meeting, where this had been discussed. The Panel could then discuss the item once it was timetabled and ready to be considered at a meeting.

 

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

 

i)             Noted the progress made in relation to implementation of the new performance reporting arrangements.

 

ii)            Noted the criteria to guide the preparation of performance reports for consideration by the Panel and the interim criteria used to support the Panel’s first Performance Report set out at Appendix A.

 

iii)           Accepted the invitation to Panel Members to engage with the Strategy, Policy and Performance Team to support the identification of additional indicators under the Corporate Plan objective “A council trusted to deliver its promises”.

 

iv)           Considered the Performance Report at Appendix A and agreed any areas of performance the Panel considered appropriate to refer for further, more detailed scrutiny.