Agenda item

Corporate Performance – Quarter 4 2022/23 Outturn Report

This report provides a summary of the progress against the Council’s three Corporate Plan priorities using the Council's performance at the end of Quarter 4, 2022/23 (Q4).

Corporate Performance – Quarter 4 2022/23 Outturn Report

Councillor Wearmouth, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Corporate Services provided an introduction to the report which provided a summary of the progress against the Council’s three Corporate Plan priorities using the Council’s performance at the end of Quarter 4 of 2022/23.  Thanks were provided to the customer services team who had answered 92% of calls in an average time of 136 seconds, which was exceptional and related to a wide variety of questions.  In relation to the financial position of the Council it had been a turbulent year however the year had been ended with an underspend of £5.8m for 2022/23.  He had been very pleased to see the improvement in using local contractors and this would be continued to be pushed forward through the BEST programme and other projects.  Good progress was being made with the provision of superfast broadband, noting however that there was always more that could be done.  There was a great deal of data contained in the report which would be of interest to Members.

Councillor Dale highlighted the digital phone switchover which would have a massive impact for residents especially in rural areas where additional equipment might need to be purchased to ensure phone connectivity during storms etc.  The possibility of having a partnership between the Council, BT and other organisations with an interest was suggested to make sure all worked together and as people were rightly concerned about this. 

Councillor Wearmouth advised that this would be addressed during Policy Conferences and this would also be picked up by Scrutiny.  There was need for discussions with the relevant Companies and residents needed to know that this was going to happen and innovative ways of providing resilience would be required.

Councillor Ball questioned when the levelling up money was to be spent in Ashington and when a consultation on how this was to be used would take place as she had been told this would take place in autumn and she had heard nothing with residents becoming disillusioned and frustrated.

Councillor Wearmouth responded by thanking her for bringing to Members’ attention the Government funding which Ashington had attracted and, with which he believed, good progress was being made.  Councillor Ploszaj and the Regeneration team would be providing more information in due course.  This funding was in addition to that already being provided for the new station in Ashington and College with lots of things for the residents of Ashington to look forward to.

Councillor Carr was pleased to see the broadband targets were being met, however he also had concerns when in 2025 the pstn lines would cease to exist and questioned if anything was being done to identify the small demographic of residents who did not have internet connection and would be trapped with no way of contacting the Council as often they also did not have mobile phones.

Councillor Wearmouth advised that this would be work the team would be undertaking as it was definitely something that the Council needed to understand, however it would not be straightforward to identify which residents would need to be contacted and that they would be provided for as they wished.

Councillor Morphet stated that it had been noticed that the Council’s inequalities work was more focussed on health inequality and poverty prevention rather than wealth inequality.  It was suggested that focus should be on the maximum to minimum income ratio, the maximum to minimum land ownership ratio and maximum to minimum total wealth ratio for the County to monitor the progress in tackling inequality as the problem as a whole would never be solved unless the big picture was looked at.

Councillor Wearmouth responded by stating that there was a whole variety of KPIs which were constantly being reviewed.  Ultimately he thought there was a great deal being done to bring investment into the County, creating jobs and making sure that people were being given the best start in life.  Credit should be given to the Council and the Leader for putting inequalities at the heart of everything that the Council were doing.

Councillor Grimshaw highlighted the impressive performance of the Communities Together team, for which she had great respect in that they did an absolutely fantastic job in responding to requests and she wished to ensure that the service was fully funded and staffed in order to provide help to vulnerable people within the County.

Councillor Wearmouth also joined her in thanking the staff of Communities Together with the focus now moving from the Covid and Ukraine response to achieving the right focus for the future. 

Councillor Dickinson stated that he welcomed that the Leaders were now having a discussion regarding KPIs and he would like to meet with Councillor Wearmouth separately on this.  Whilst he was pleased to see some improvement and there was a lot to see, he felt that there could be more evidence/data provided to give weight to the document.  He asked if the revised KPIs would be implemented in time for the next report.

Councillor Wearmouth advised that KPIs were constantly being reviewed and the Administration was keen to receive feedback through scrutiny etc and Group Leaders had the ability to provide feedback through the Group Leaders meetings.  However, he did ask that KPIs were not changed repeatedly as then the thread of what you were trying to monitor could be lost. 

RESOLVED that the progress against the three Corporate Priorities, as summarised in the report, be noted.