Invitees:

All Cabinet Members & CMB

 

The Chief Executive presented a report that provided the Committee with an overview of the Council’s performance in 2020-21, as at quarter 2. It compared performance against the commitments made to deliver the well-being objectives in the Corporate Plan 2018-22, reviewed for 2020-21.

 

Members asked the following:

 

A Member felt that in relation to point 4.1.5.1 that the target should not be changed as it was accepted that the year had been exceptional.

 

The Chief Executive acknowledged that the pandemic had impacted performance negatively on some indicators.  This was an example where having more people working in an agile way, had a significant positive impact, particular on short term sickness, albeit long-term sickness had sometimes stayed the same or had gone up. In terms of the targets, these were set, for the year, based on marginally below last year’s actual. The Chief Executive was keen to achieve a forward and improved focus, moving downwards and gradually reducing the target year on year to the level wanted.  The target should remain the same this year and it would be bettered, but there was a strong case for reviewing those targets going forward.

 

The Member asked if long-term sickness, underlying illnesses and disabilities contributed towards sickness, noted at point 6. In terms of the Equality Impact Assessment, it said there were no equality implications in the report.

 

In terms of the Equality Impact Assessment, the Chief Executive took the point and said he would be happy to revise it if Members felt those sorts of impacts should be included. This was a regular debate and noted if there were some specific impacts that had been identified, he would be happy to look at those.

 

A Member asked what was the amount of the Covid-19 reserve as indicated on page 8 of the report.

 

The Interim Chief Officer - Finance, Performance and Change explained that the reserve had been put aside at £3m, with £500k put into a specific fund for emergency Covid-19 issues. The Council had been successful in terms of the hardship grant which the Welsh Government (WG) had set aside, but would probably only get 75% - 80% costs back. Council tax was running near to 2% down on income, which gave a shortfall of £2m, and it was not known if this could be recovered by year-end.

 

A Member referred to point WBO1.2.4 on page 8 of the report and explained that it did not sit very well and could it be explained a bit more thoroughly.

 

The Interim Chief Officer - Finance, Performance and Change explained that this was about the bigger package for businesses and kick starting the economy and WG had endeavoured to support businesses with a series of grants. They could also apply for help from the economic resilience fund, but in terms of support and financial support, that was the offer at the moment.

 

The Chief Officer - Legal, HR & Regulatory Services explained, in relation to the foundational economy, there was a plan to do partnership, which had been delayed as a result of Covid-19.  The project was back up and running and the Corporate Procurement Manager was preparing a report for Cabinet, to give an outline of where the Council was with the different projects.

 

The Leader made the point that at a certain stage the Council was hoping and planning for a potential recovery but he noted it now faced some of the darkest days. What had been progressed was the Kick-start Grant, which was in addition to funding available from UK Government and WG, and was from the Council’s own resources. The Property Enhancement Fund had been rolled-out across the county borough as well. 

 

The Corporate Director – Communities explained that a tremendous amount of work had been done with the business community and retail sector throughout the whole pandemic, although there had been a slight delay in the Employment Hub Programme. Rent relief and reduced rents had taken place across units in the borough. There was also tremendous support for town centres. Work had taken place on advice leaflets, screens, hygiene and information leaflets.  There had been a tremendous effort by the team to ensure that even through the pandemic and going forward, businesses were prioritised, as they were an essential part of economic recovery.

 

The Chairperson noted on page 9, in respect of DOPS25(a), percentage of births registered within 42 days, that there needed to be a move towards digital and not just registering in person.

 

The Chief Officer - Legal, HR & Regulatory Services explained that legislation had changed in relation to Death registrations, but there had been no change in legislation relating to in Birth registrations, so as the legalisation currently stood, this had to be done face to face. There was ongoing discussions at national level whether there was scope to change this, but at the moment, the Council’s hands were tied. 

A Member referred to Page 10, PAM/045 - number of additional dwellings created as a result of bringing empty properties back into use, queried the distribution of these, and asked what were the key factors preventing Empty Homes Grants in the Garw Valley. The Member asked to have a written response.

 

The Cabinet Member for Future Generations and Wellbeing confirmed she would provide a written response.

 

A Member referred to Page 11, CED17 - percentage of council tax arrears collected compared to arrears outstanding and asked if this could be explained in simple terms.

 

The Interim Chief Officer - Finance, Performance and Change explained that there were real difficulties in terms of arrears and council tax as it was set at a point in time and on any one day, it would be a different figure. The council tax figures were collected on a different basis and sometimes the figures mislead. What she had asked Council Tax to do was to set out a standard form of report that Bridgend acknowledged it needed, although acknowledged that regardless of what was indicated in Q2, the arrears were currently high and the arrears at Q3 were even higher.  She would come back to Members once she had the template for going forward, which would clarify some of the figures.  The reason it was green was because the figures had gone down.

 

The Member noted that it made it look rosy. 

 

The Interim Chief Officer - Finance, Performance and Change said she would take this point away.

 

A Member referred to Page 11, CED34 a) noting the narrative stated that the pandemic had prevented the contractor from attending schools to complete the installations. He would have thought that during a period of low attendance, this was the optimum time to attend schools and asked if there was any particular reason why this continued to be an issue.

 

The Corporate Director – Education & Family Support expressed agreement stating that normally there would be ready access to schools when there were no pupils in. The challenge was getting some of the resources into classrooms when operating very tight bubbles with year groups within classes to reduce any risk of transmission. He acknowledged that this had been remedied somewhat going forward and there had been progress on it, but difficulties had still been encountered to meet with the health and safety requirements.

 

A Member referred to Pages 12 & 13, PSR002 (PAM/015) and PSR009a and stated that this had been raised last year and was simply not acceptable. It took a year for a disability grant from Adults and nearly two years for a disability grant to be approved for Children and asked how both of these categories could be improved.

A Member also agreed and explained that this particular target had come into its own. It was likely a large percentage of disabled people would be on the shielding list as well, so the stay at home message for disabled people was stronger than ever. Whilst recognising that this was an issue for a number of local authorities and could see there had been some progress on Adults, he shared the Members concern.

 

A Member further agreed but acknowledged that there was a Cabinet report and asked the Cabinet Member to explain how this would improve the numbers going forward.

 

The Cabinet Member for Future Generations and Wellbeing explained that a Cabinet report that had been published on the 13 January 2021 and suggested Members should read the report.  The proposal was to work with Neath Port Talbot Council to develop an in-house service to address this exact concern as currently the works were carried out by external agencies and the local authority had limited input into what was being delivered.

 

The Interim Chief Officer - Finance, Performance and Change couldn’t disagree with the comments made by Members on this and noted that the Audit Committee were keeping a very close eye on it. In essence, there would be a series of reports going forward which would tackle each particular part of the system. The first part was to bring the agency in-house. This was incredibly important as nothing could be done about most complaints because they were not down to the Council. She hoped that when the Cabinet report went through Members would start to see some real action in terms of the Council taking control of its own destiny. If anyone wanted to have more detail, then she was happy to arrange a briefing.

 

A Member referred to Page 15, in relation to sickness broken down by service area and the sickness absence by reason. It clearly explained the imbalance but also the worrying trend of the impact of long-term sickness absence. What could be done to make things better for staff to reduce the incidents of long-term sickness in relation to stress, anxiety, depression and mental health, taking particular care in a pandemic?

 

The Chief Executive reassured Members that staff welfare and wellbeing was a main priority with the recognition that staff had been working incredibly hard for an awful long time in trying circumstances. There was still a relatively large number of staff with long-term sickness and there was recognition that working from home would be beneficial to some staff but not to all, and therefore wellbeing was a real issue. The Council had ensured it provided a package of support that was available to all staff and that Managers continued to be trained in remote management. This would continue to be a priority going forward.

 

The Leader was particularly mindful that some staff, for example, in social services, would have had to deal with the unexpected deaths of residents they had provided care for. This had, in some cases, been a traumatic experience and they continued to experience acute pressure in roles and the Council was continuing to assess how it could provide support to them in the immediate and long-term.

 

A Member referred to Page 19, DEFS29 - the percentage of completed Team Around the Family (TAF) support plans that close with a successful outcome. Whilst understanding it was green, why had the target been lowered as he did not feel it was challenging enough.

 

The Corporate Director – Education & Family Support stated that this was a fair comment and the narrative needed to be bolstered. What had happened with the TAF process this year was that some of the requirements within the process had been sharpened so the way things were done had changed? It would be worthwhile adding this to the narrative to explain this a bit better.

 

A Member referred to Page 23, the number of working days lost per FTE due to industrial injury and explained this showed a lot of red, which was very concerning. How was the Council working to minimise the risk and how realistic was the target zero.

 

The Corporate Director - Education & Family Support explained that the Council had set itself a very challenging target agreed by the Corporate Health and Safety Steering Group (CHSSG). This needed to be kept so there was close focus on this to make sure this was set at the foremost of all the Directorates’ minds in terms of driving this down. One of the other things introduced alongside this, especially in schools, was an online reporting system.  His view was that the zero be maintained, as this was a clear focus to the Council to drive down these absences because of industrial industry, although he expected the target to show red for the foreseeable future.

 

The Chief Executive noted that most of the health and safety targets were deliberately set at an incredibly challenging level, often at 100% or at 0% and this was a deliberate policy, even though it was recognised that this might mean occasionally coming out red. This could be reviewed but he was not comfortable with setting targets that were almost seen as setting a target for an accident. This approach had generally been taken across the board.

 

A Member referred to Page 30, PAM/035 - average number of days taken to clear fly tipping incidents and asked how the target was green when many calls had not been investigated.

 

The Chief Executive stated that he understood the Members point and that maybe the narrative could be bolstered. He understood that it had been measured slightly differently this year because there were certain calls that had to be closed but thought it was still worth pursuing and measuring for the purposes of keeping it in this year’s document.

 

A Member referred to Page 31, WBO1.2.2 and noted the comment was all about Bridgend Town Centre when clearly there were more towns and other commercial centres.

 

The Cabinet Member for Education and Regeneration agreed with the Member and noted that Covid-19 has shown that there were other commercial centres which people perhaps valued even more. He would like to see the townscape heritage initiative grant opportunities expand out to the four town centres and be available in other places, which were seen as important.

 

The Corporate Director – Communities explained that the text could have been amended to reflect the local authority’s position. She acknowledged the Bridgend Town Centre masterplan but other centres across the borough were just as important, particularly during the pandemic, where shopping local was vital. She was keen to look at those local shopping parades and district centres that were vital for the economy and for the local community and look at improving the business offer there. She was very aware of this and wanted to get the message out that shopping local was the approach to economic recovery.

 

The Chairperson agreed with the sentiment and noted that everything needed to be appraised including the accessibility of footpaths.

 

A Member referred to Page 32, in regards to Town Centres and was concerned around the empty properties and empty premises that were going to rise as a result of Covid-19.

 

The Corporate Director – Communities agreed with the Member and felt that the figure would increase for vacant premises, as unfortunately businesses may not survive the pandemic.  This needed to be baselined so that when the pandemic ended meaningful targets could be set and new business start-ups could be encouraged, to get the vitality and viability back.  Town centres were more than just a retail destination but a destination for community, wellbeing and people getting together.  There was a daytime and night-time economy and this was something to be mindful of when moving into the recovery phase.

 

The Cabinet Member for Education and Regeneration explained that the three large towns all had projects going on and those projects had continued through the pandemic, with difficulty, and with very careful safety measures. Maesteg Town Hall, The Bridgend Master plan and the ongoing plans for Porthcawl regeneration, were all going ahead.

 

 

RESOLVED:                      That the Committee noted the half-year Corporate Performance, subject to the comments made by Members.