ERL: Quarter 2 Performance Report                                   Appendix 2

Key to performance ratings

Performance Summary

·         None of the targetable quarterly key performance indicators (KPIs) reportable to this Committee achieved their Quarter 2 (Q2) target¹.

·         Compared to last quarter (Q1 2022/23), performance for 50% 3 of 6 KPIs have improved and 16.7% (1) of (6) have declined¹.

• Compared to last year (Q2 2021/22), performance for 66.7% 4 of 6 KPIs have improved and none of the targetable quarterly key performance indicators have declined¹.

Economy

The Council no longer uses Springboard to record town centre footfall from a fixed camera in Week Street. Springboard was unable to identify unique visitors and instead recorded every movement past the fixed camera.

Footfall is now measured using data from HUQ, which records unique visitors for the entire town centre area using mobile phone data. Reporting data from Q2 2022 will look different as we have updated to the KPI to reflect this change.

Below are graphs from both systems showing historical data to demonstrate the changes in calculating footfall.

Using the data from HUQ, the “Footfall in Town Centre” KPI achieved an outcome of 428,180 against a target of 468,658, missing its target by less than 10%. When comparing it to HUQ data from the last quarter, footfall has increased by 28.9%. When comparing it to the same quarter last year, the footfall count has increased by 27%.

Unemployment rates in Maidstone have stayed consistent in July 2022 when compared to June 2022. In August 2022 the figure slightly shifted and decreased by 0.1%, which came back to the same figure as July 2022 in September 2022. Figures still significantly higher than pre-pandemic figures of 1.8% (Q2 2018/19).

Unemployment among youth figure has slightly increased in August (525) and September (530) against July figure (500). The number of youths unemployed in Q2 2022/23 (1555) is 55.6% lower than in Q2 2021/22 (2420). However, it is still significantly higher by 33.4% than the pre-pandemic figure of 1035 for Q2 2018/19.

Prices for all properties saw an increase of 1.4% in July 2022 against June 2022. Prices of detached houses increased in July 2022 by 1.3% to June 2022. Semi-detached houses increased by 1.6% against June 2022. Terraced Houses increased by 1.35% against June 2022. Flats & Maisonettes saw an increase of 1.2% against June 2022.

When compared to last year (July 2021), all properties saw an increase of 10%, detached houses saw an increase of 12.1%, semi-detached houses saw an increase of 11%, terraced houses saw an increase of 9.6%, flats and maisonettes saw an increase of 5.1% in average price.

At the time of writing this report, volumes have not yet been published by HM Land Registry for Q2 of 2022, so figures are provided up until June 2022. In June 2022, the number of properties sold in Maidstone saw an increase of (22.2%) when compared with May 2022 (154, up from 126). In May, however, houses sold decreased by 11.9% to April 2022 (126, up from 143). When compared to June pre-pandemic (2019), the sales of properties decreased by 33.1% (154, down from 205).