Agenda item

Consider report by Service Director Customer & Communities.  (Copy attached).

8.1       There had been circulated copies of a report by the Service Director Customer & Communities which presented a high level summary of Scottish Borders Council’s Quarter 2 2019/20 performance information with more detail contained within Appendices 1 and 2 attached to the report.  The report included reporting on the progress of change and improvement projects across Scottish Borders Council (SBC) within the four corporate themes.  The report explained that in order to monitor progress against the four themes, a review of performance and context information would be undertaken quarterly and presented to Executive Committee as well as an annual summary in June each year.  Section 4 of the report referenced examples of Change and Improvement projects, with further information contained in Appendix 1.  These projects were monitored by Corporate Management Team (CMT) and through the SBC Financial Plan and associated monitoring.  A summary of any additions or changes made to SBC performance indicators was provided at Section 5 of the report, followed by a high level summary of performance in Section 6 and a schedule of indicators provided for information at Appendix 4.  To reflect the significant investment made by SBC, an overview of the work and impact of Police Scotland’s Community Action Team was provided at Section 7 and within Appendix 3.  During Quarter 2 2019/20, SBC had continued to press ahead a range of innovative approaches which included:

·      ended landfill operations at Easter Langlee which meant that the Scottish Borders would meet the Scottish Government’s landfill site ban, well ahead of the January 2021 deadline;

·      welcomed 32 probationer teachers and 7 student-inductees who would work across Borders schools in the 2019-20 academic year as part of the teacher induction scheme;

·      commenced the roll-out of iPads to pupils as part of the Inspire Learning programme, initially at Selkirk High School; and

·      launched a second Community Action Team, with Police Scotland.

8.2       The information contained within the report and the appendices was also available on the SBC website.  The Service Director Customer & Communities advised that following comments received changes had been made to the format of the report which showed a shorter set of appendices with some graphs removed but had been replaced with clearer information to show at a glance the trends in terms of the performance aligned to the corporate plan and was summarised to show the indicators aligned with Committee information and the Scottish Government Framework.  This format would continue to be evolved to improve reporting and would include a number of service areas and would also take into account the audit report.  More detailed information would be provided through the Fit for 2024 programme.  Members commented on the use of the hands to show the trends and would welcome an alternative way to display this information.  In response to a question regarding complaints in respect of the time taken for telephone calls from members of the public being answered, Mrs Craig advised that she was not aware of any issues but would make available to Members the average waiting time performance statistics.  Members welcomed the information on the new CAT team and thanked officers for the performance information and recognised the amount of time spent preparing the vast range of information.  Members commented that the report was now in a much easier and user friendly format.

DECISION

NOTED:-

(a)       the progress update relating to Change and Improvement Projects, referenced in Section 4 and detailed further in Appendix 1; 

(b)       the changes to performance indicators outlined in Section 5 of the report; and

(c)     the performance summarised in Sections 6 and 7, and detailed within Appendices 1, 2 and 3 and the action that was being taken within services to improve or maintain performance.