To consider progress made in the first quarter for the Council’s key performance indicators (KPIs) at Appendix A to the report of the Head of Policy & Communications.

a)  That the progress and out-turns of the KPIs at Quarter 1 attached as Appendix A to the report of the Head of Policy & Communications, together with the Definitions included for reference attached as Appendix B to the report were noted;

b)  That the area where performance is strong and on track to achieve annual targets was noted; and

c)  That the areas where performance has declined be noted and the  Planning Support Service will be reviewed by the Internal Audit Service.

Having a comprehensive and relevant set of performance indicators and targets is vital in ensuring that the Council delivers against its priorities and outcomes.

The Council has 61 Key performance indicators as part of the Strategic Plan 2011-15; there are 35 indicators that can be monitored quarterly to ensure the Council is on track to meet its annual performance targets.

Context

The Council uses a range of information to manage performance including performance indicators. The top level indicators are referred to as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These are set to support the delivery of the Strategic Plan. Each April the KPI set is reviewed, new targets and indicators were agreed by Cabinet in July 2014. Where possible a continuous improvement approach is used to ensure that targets are challenging. At the mid-year report Managers will be asked to assess their indicators to identify if any are likely to underperform.

Performance Summary

Appendix A to the report of the Head of Policy & Communications shows out-turn data for all indicators that can be collected quarterly. Some indicators are collected bi-annually or annually, these indicators have not been included in this report.

Where an indicator is new and there is no 2013/14 data, no direction can be given. The direction where available, compares the 2014/15 quarter 1 out-turn with the 2013/14 quarter 1 out-turn.

Indicators that are ‘Data Only’ do not have targets and therefore will not show a status rating (red, amber or green). These will however show direction compared to the same period in the previous year.

The tables below show the status of the KPIs in relation to the target and direction. Where possible targets are profiled to take into account seasonal variances.

Overall, 55% (17) of all KPIs that can be measured quarterly have achieved the quarterly targets and 58% (18) of KPIs are showing improved performance compared to the first quarter in 2013/14.

At this point last year 40% (15) of KPIs had achieved the quarter 1 target and 44% (12) were showing an improvement compared to the previous year. The tables below show a comparison of the indicator ratings and direction of travel for quarter 1 2013/14 and 2014/15.

It should be noted that at the end of 2013/14, 51% of KPIs achieved their annual targets and 55% of all out-turns had improved. 

Of the nine KPIs that have been rated amber for quarter 1, all were within 5% of the target, and seven were within 1.5% of the target. 

For Maidstone to have a growing economy

Income from pay and display car parks has increased by 27% compared to the same period last year this equates to an additional £63.10 income per parking space.

Although the number of park and ride on-board transactions has declined slightly from the same period last year, the quarter 1 out-turn is only 1% away from the target. At this point last year this indicator was showing a 4% decline, the difference between the 2014/15 quarter 1 out-turn, and the 2013/14 quarter 1 out-turn is 0.4%, indicating that the decline is slowing. 

At March 2014 there were 1,802 people in the borough claiming Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), this has continued to drop during 2014/15 and currently stands at 1.5% (1,464 people). The last time the proportion of people claiming JSA was this low was in December 2008 when the rate was 1.6% with 1,551 people claiming JSA.

For Maidstone to be a decent place to live

Housing have performed strongly this quarter, delivering 39 affordable homes and making improvements to 70 private sector homes. The team has also, through housing advice intervention, prevented 118 households from becoming homeless.

The average length of stay in temporary accommodation has not achieved the quarterly target. This is due to the increased demand from homeless households where the council has a statutory duty to provide emergency temporary accommodation. The service has mitigated the impact of increased demand through focusing on reducing the time taken to complete homeless investigations in order to minimise the length of stay in temporary accommodation, where possible. In addition, work is ongoing to reduce the nightly cost of temporary accommodation through using alternative providers, and the completion of the Aylesbury House project. This will provide 12 rooms of temporary bed and breakfast accommodation at a lower cost when it becomes operational in September 2014.

There have been performance issues for all types of planning applications. These performance issues were highlighted in the 2013/14 Annual Performance Report. A review of the planning support shared service is scheduled for October. It should be noted that although processing is happening outside of the statutory timescales customers have been contacted to agree extended timescales.

Corporate & Customer Excellence

All of the Channel Shift indicators have achieved their quarterly targets, although only the one measuring visits to the Gateway is showing an improvement compared to the same period last year. All of these indicators have improved since the 2013/14 year end, when phone and gateway contacts were rated red and the online contacts were rated amber. 

The average wait time for calls into the contact centre has improved compared to the same period last year and by 22 seconds compared to the 2013/14 annual out-turn. During the last quarter several Customer Service Advisors left the contact centre. These posts were not filled until the end of the quarter. This coupled with the additional calls for the planning support shared service, which is almost triple the number of calls previously received for planning and extends the call time by an average of 2 minutes, has impacted on performance levels. 

There has been a 166% (156 additional complaints) increase in the number of complaints received for quarter 1 2014/15 compared to quarter 1 2013/14. Of the 250 complaints received to date for 2014/15, 109 related to the Landed Festival which was held on Easter Sunday. The percentage of those being escalated to stage 2 however has dropped from 24.5% at quarter 1 last year to 12% for the current period, which is positive as is the increase in satisfaction with complaint handling which has increased by almost 10% compared to the same period last year. 

KPIs reflect local priorities and measure progress towards theCouncil’s key objectives. They are the Council’s top level indicatorsand are linked to the Council’s Strategic Plan;

The Council could choose not to monitor KPIs quarterly and/or alternative performance management arrangements such as changing the reporting frequency; and

Not monitoring progress against the KPIs could mean that the Council fails to deliver its priorities and would also mean that action could not be taken effectively to address performance during the year.