Agenda item

(Director of Governance) To consider the attached report.

The Senior Performance Improvement Officer, Barbara Copson introduced the report on the review of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) proposed for 2015/16.  Although some revisions to existing KPIs were proposed, it was not intended that significant changes be made to the overall indicator set for the next year. Service Directors had identified provisional targets for each indicator with their relevant portfolio holders based on third quarter performance (and the estimated outturn position) for the current year.

The KPIs relevant to this Panel had a number of changes recommended. It was proposed that the following indicators were deleted:

i)      GOV001  How satisfied with their experience were visitors to the Council’s website?  - this indicator has not generated a statistically viable sample to be worthwhile;

ii)     RES007   How many fraud investigations were completed?  - Housing Benefit investigation will cease to be the responsibility of the Council from October 2015;

iii)    RES008   In what percentage of potential benefit fraud cases investigated by the Benefit Investigation Team, was fraud proven? - Housing Benefit investigation will cease to be the responsibility of the Council from October 2015.

Three new indicators were to be introduced to replace GOV001 Website Satisfaction:

                 I.        Are customer needs being met by the Corporate Website being available?

                II.        Are customer needs being met by the Corporate Website not having broken links? 

               III.        Are customer needs being met by the main Corporate Website having effective navigation?

The Panel noted that improvement plans would be developed for each KPI, identifying actions to achieve target performance, which would be considered and agreed by Management Board. As part of this process, the Board will also review the provisional targets for each KPI with reference to outturn data for 2014/15 when this becomes available. Any revisions to targets on the basis of the outturn position will be reported to this Scrutiny Panel in June 2015.

Councillor Jon Whitehouse commenting on the proposed website indicators noted that not everything that we wanted to know was measurable. Did we do any user testing on how people use the website? The Assistant Director ICT and Facilities Management, Mr Newton replied that they were considering doing this. The Website Development Board did receive a lot of statistics on the website. But the board was made up of Council employees who are familiar with the website. They were thinking of asking affiliated organisations, such as the Tenant Participation Board to get some impartial feedback. They also hoped to use other groups that we were in contact with. However, they would not like to pay an organisation to do this.

Councillor Knapman commented that there had been a lot of improvement over time on our website and this should be noted.

Councillor Mohindra asked if the council only looked at Housing Benefit fraud. He was told that it did.  He then asked if we could look at Council Tax fraud or corporate fraud. Councillor Philip said that they would need to look at this to see what they would need to measure. As for the new three website indicators, these were what the big companies looked at.

Councillor Watson was unsure about the comments to RES003 ‘what % of the district’s annual Council Tax was collected?’ Mr Maddock said that he was unsure and that he would talk to the relevant Assistant Director about it.

RESOLVED:

That the proposed Key Performance Indicators and targets for 2015/16 that fall within this Panel area of responsibility be agreed and referred to the Finance and Performance Cabinet Committee.