Issue - meetings

Commercial and Regulatory Services – (C-077-2020-21) - Qualis has provided the Council with the Quarters’ Management Accounts for the Council consideration.

The Cabinet discussed and commented on the Qualis quarter 1(2020/21) monitoring report.

The Commercial and Regulatory Service Portfolio Holder, Councillor Patel introduced the quarterly Qualis monitoring report. He noted that the Governance framework for Qualis, as agreed by Cabinet in February 2020, set the requirement that Qualis should report to Epping Forest District Council on its performance on a quarterly basis. This report had also gone to the Stronger Council Select Committee on 13 April for their information and comments.

This report presented the Qualis first Quarter’s monitoring report for the Qualis trading year 2020/21 and covered the period from 1 November to 31 January 2021. 

With Housing Maintenance services having transferred to Qualis in Quarter 4 (end of September 2020) of the previous trading year, this quarter represented the first whole quarter of both service delivery activity, commercial investment and regeneration work.   

Qualis had also requested permission from EFDC as its shareholder to change their financial year end date to the end of September and we had agreed to this request. Therefore, to accommodate this their next quarter’s report would only cover two months, February and March 2021.

Councillor Philip welcomed the changes to their financial year as it would help us in our budget preparation and hopefully, they would now start making a positive impact on our budget.

Councillor Wixley was interested in the Pyrles Lane site mentioned in the report; what was being proposed for this site? He was told that these were just preparatory and investigatory works on the site.

Councillor Wixley asked what the work was for. He was told to find out if there were any hidden problems for future development.

Councillor Wixley noted that Housing Repairs had been transferred to Qualis – could we have a consumer satisfaction survey carried on their work. Councillor H Whitbread answered that there had been no specific research done on this; but in general, from customer feedback received, it had been good. Councillor Patel added that Qualis would monitor the satisfaction of residents in line with how the council used to monitor this.  S Jevans said that they did measure customer satisfaction. The last recorded month was a 95% satisfaction and they also had a customer insight officer dedicated to following up complaints. This would be shown on our KPIs. Councillor C Whitbread asked if these results went to any Select Committees for review. Officers were not sure if it did. Councillor C Whitbread said that it needed to be seen by a relevant Select Committee, particularly around the areas of Housing as this was an important part of what we did.

Councillor Murray noted that with more and more services being transferred to Qualis he would like to see performance report going to the relevant Select Committee. Councillor C Whitbread said that he too was keen to see this maintained and he was sure that Councillor H Whitbread and relevant officer would pick up on this.

Decision:

The Cabinet discussed and commented on the Qualis quarter 1(2020/21) monitoring report.