Councillor Chris Penberthy (Cabinet Member for Housing, Cooperative Development and Communities) introduced the report and highlighted:

a)    The report was in draft form as some changes were to be made;

b)    It covered the end of the previous administrations corporate plan and the beginning of the new plan;

c)    The report showed which scrutiny panel was responsible for each of the indicators and which Cabinet Member was leading on each indicator;

d)    The Cabinet wanted to be as transparent as possible in order to help with management and scrutiny, as well as work with partners, as the KPI’s indicated a direction not just for the council but for the city;

e)    The report included an additional 10 indicators compared to the previous report, and more could be added moving forward;

f)     26 of the indicators were in the previous corporate plan’s performance reports, so the report had some continuity and some development;

g)    Review work for the report would ensure that the data not only showed month-on-month changes, but also the parameters that the council worked within as ‘normal’ good practice in order to focus on the things that were abnormal on a long-term basis;

h)    Notable findings included the fact that there had been an increase of 50% in anti-social behaviour interventions, a marginal decrease in the number of children with repeat child protection plans and considerable work had been done to reduce levels of homelessness;

i)     Homelessness was the biggest priority for him as Cabinet Member for that area, and work had begun to bring numbers of those in B&B’s down, so they were in Airbnb’s, so it was somewhere more suitable for them to be staying and solutions to common issues like not being able to stay with family due to storage issues, being solved with purchases of sheds, or bunk beds, whilst trying to support all to find a more permanent solution with their own home and he welcomed the opportunity of bringing an item on tackling homelessness to a future Committee meeting;

j)     He was interested in benchmarking against other local authorities in the report in the future.

In response to questions it was further explained:

k)    If Members of the Committee had more technical questions on a specific KPI and was able to let the Chair know before the meeting, Councillor Penberthy would do his best to have a response at the meeting;

l)     Members of the Committee were welcome to suggest further KPI’s if they felt they were useful;

m)  The administration would continually review whether new technologies were purchased to complete work to free up staff time and resource;

n)    Carriageway defects would continue to be reported on with the data to be reviewed in relation to the use of velocity in repairs;

o)    Councillor Penberthy wanted to look in more detail at the KPI on the number of households prevented from becoming homeless or relieved of homelessness, in order to understand if less people were coming to the council for support, or if there had been an actual decrease, which was unlikely as there was an issue around Section 21 evictions, people becoming homeless because they were fleeing domestic abuse, and a significant decrease in the number of rental properties available;

p)    The Cabinet was not aware of any plans to increase car parking charges, but they may have been some scope in increasing enforcement;

q)    The number of people aged 65 and over living with a life-limiting long term illness or mobility issue was expected to increase significantly by 2035, but a specific indicator on this was not recommended as the date was so far in the future that the increase across a year now, would not likely show a significant change, but would influence strategic plans for the city;

r)    Councillor Penberthy thanked everyone in the city who worked to reduce levels of homelessness, but especially the council’s New George Street team who were working with those people in need and were coming up with new solutions;

s)     The council was looking across projects to change the way in which it engaged with communities to improve and increase engagement.

The Committee agreed to:

1.    Note the report.