Transcript

I'd like to make an announcement about the webcasting. This meeting will be recorded for live and/or subsequent broadcast on the Council's website in accordance with the Council's capacity in performing a task in the public interest and in line with the openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014. The whole of the meeting will be recorded, except where there are confidential or exempt items, and the footage will be on the website for six months. If you have any queries regarding webcasting or meetings, please contact Committee Services. Welcome to the first meeting of the Resources, Overview and Scrutiny Committee. If the fire alarm sounds, and we're not expecting it to, please leave in an orderly manner down the nearest fire escape and assemble outside the front gates by the river. Please can you also make sure that your mobile phones are turned to silent. Thank you. May I invite committee members to indicate in turn that they are present. Councillor Phil Bellamy. Present. Councillor John Bennett. Present. Councillor Honor Brooker. Present. Councillor Jason Fenwick. Councillor Stephen Hives. Present. Councillor Vanessa King. Present. Councillor Nassar Kamaya. Present. Councillor Katie Steele. Present. Councillor Seaworth Price. Present. And Councillor Dominique Williams. Present. Thank you. I'd like to also welcome the lead Councillor for Community and Organizational Development, Councillor Carla Mawson, and the lead Councillor for Finance and Property, Councillor Richard Lucas. And welcome to the other Councillors in the chamber, Julia McShane, our leader, and Howard Smith. Could I also ask other Councillors present remotely to identify themselves in the chat function. Also here tonight to help the committee is Richard Bates, the Strategic Director of Finance, Robin Taylor, the Assistant Director of Organizational Development, Luke Harvey, Corporate Strategy and Performance Manager, and Andrea Barnett, Policy Officer, Strategy and Performance. James from Democratic Services is supporting the running of this meeting and Charlotte is webcasting tonight. Item number one, apologies for absence and notification of substitute members. James. Thank you, Chair. Two apologies, Councillors Mills and Fenwick. Thank you. Item number two, Local Code of Conduct and Declaration of Discloseable Pecuniary Interests. Are there any Discloseable Pecuniary Interests? Thank you. And then are there any non-pecuniary interests that members would wish to disclose? Thank you. Please also note that item five on the agenda, the Guildford and Waverley collaboration update has been deferred due to the heightened political sensitivities of the pre-election period. Item number three, Financial Monitoring Provisional 2324, Out-Turn Position. Before we have a verbal update from Richard Bates, the Strategic Director of Finance of Guildford and Waverley Borough Councils, would Councillor Richard Lucas, Lead Councillor for Finance and Property, wish to comment before the update from the Strategic Director? No, thank you. Thank you. Then Richard, please, could we have your report? Yes, thank you, Chairman, and good evening, members. So the draft accounts for the last financial year were published last Friday, so obviously we haven't had time to do a report, that will come to the next committee meeting. So we hit the statutory deadline by about four or five hours, I think. But I think it's important to note that actually that's the first time that this council has done that in the last four or five years. Only 40% of district councils managed to do it in time, and we are part of that band. So I think that's a good step forward for us. Obviously it's been a really difficult year. We started with a £3 million deficit. Obviously we've been through the financial recovery plan process. We've had to deal with things like a vacancy freeze, stopping some of our discretionary spend during the year. But the draft out-of-term position, which is in the account, shows an underspend on service budgets of about £240,000, and underspend on our corporate items of around £2 million, so a total of about £2.2 million overall. In terms of those corporate elements, a lot of that is down to interest, so our interest rates have remained really high for the rest of the year, but also partly around some of the changes we've made to some of our policies, like the financial recovery plan, where we changed some of the treatment around things like the HRA, and the same. In terms of using that underspend, obviously that will come forward to council in due course, but we did commission the February budget, that £1 million of that would be used for some one-offs, dealing with things like shaping Guildford's future, and Microsoft licenses and a few other bits and pieces, health and safety issues, one-off items basically that we didn't have the capacity to deal with as base budget items. So that money has already been committed. What I'm going to be proposing down the line is actually some of the rest of that money we use for things like Investosave, so there's a number of things that have been stalled for a while, in terms of actually being able to take those things forward in terms of transformation. Well now actually we've got the ability to put some of that money aside and use some of that basically to enable us to do some good things that will actually benefit the council financially going forwards. And obviously the other thing we need to do is start to replenish some of our reserves, so that's again part of the plan. The full details of the outcome will come forward to the next meeting of this committee, so you will have within that obviously all of the variances to understand exactly what it is that has changed between budget and obviously during the year and the actual out-term position, and importantly I think as well the impact then that has on our reserves and balances and the position going forwards. I think in tandem with that, this committee will now be used as part of the MGFP process going forwards, so I've given the dates I think to James already. I also have basically a document that sets out what it is in terms of the budget process will come through this committee and then go on basically to the full council meetings as well. So I think they'll be four meetings, so you start at your next meeting in July, then also going through September, November and January, where you'll see the development of the budget proposals come through this group basically for proper scrutiny before those things are fed in obviously to the full council meetings. Hopefully that will be something that's really helpful. What I've also agreed to do is each of the full council meetings in the hour beforehand we'll do a member session whereby behind closed doors you'll have the opportunity for us to brief you and for you to ask those questions as well, which I think hopefully members will find useful. I want to take the opportunity to thank all the staff across the organisation because we didn't get basically where we are today without everyone putting together. So the staff, the managers, the councillors, again who actually supported us throughout this process, so I thank you as well and particularly my finance team who really have gone above and beyond to actually get to where we are today, so thanks to everybody. Thank you. Are there any questions from committee members? Okay. Are there any questions from non-committee members? Howard. Thank you, Chair, and congratulations, Richard. It goes without saying it's a huge effort and it's much appreciated. So there's going to be various opportunities for us to ask questions, but are you suggesting that the briefing, the sort of behind closed door briefing is the best one for us to sort of prepare if we do have a fair number of questions? Would that be the opportunity? Is that what you're saying? There will be four meetings of this committee whereby, again, this is basically for you to ask questions during the development of the budget in terms of formal open sessions, but what I'm saying is there will also be those four sessions before the council meetings where we'll be available to answer whatever questions you want to ask, however daft they might seem, basically. But equally, the finance team are also available whenever you want us to answer questions. Daft questions. When will that sort of more detailed briefing be that's outside of the, July, August, when do you think that will be, roughly? Okay, so basically the next meeting of this committee, we will basically outline what we're going to do in terms of the budget process. That will then feed through to the full council meeting in July, before which there will be an hour session available, basically, for finance briefing and questions. And then your meetings in September, November and January will feed into the council meetings in October, December and February. And again, at each of those council meetings you will have an hour beforehand with the opportunity to ask questions and for us to brief you on what's changed since the last update report. Thank you. Richard. Thank you. I didn't want to speak before Richard to steal his thunder, but I would like to make some comments that I made before this group. Of course. This time last year, we had just closed out a year and overspent. We didn't have a balanced budget. We had a significant gap on medium-term financial plan. We discovered accounting errors so that we didn't have the reserves to cover that. We were in a mess. And I had to stop and think for a polite enough word to use there. Since then, oh, and one other thing is we weren't in a position to publish monthly expenditure reports that were meaningful, credible and timely. The first expenditure report we did for '22, '23 was after the year-end. Since then, we put a finance recovery plan in place. We have established, instituted and made business as usual a monthly expenditure reporting. We hit a balanced budget and underspent in '23, '24. We have a balanced budget for '24, '25 and we managed to close out the books and published order to count some time. And you heard we haven't done that for four or five years. And most of the councils in this country don't do it. So what I wanted to do was just put in perspective the huge progress that Richard and his team have put in place. I mean, this is mind-bogglingly big improvement. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other questions? I'd just like to then add also my congratulations to both Richards and, of course, the whole of the finance team for what appears to be getting the finances back to shape. So thank you very much indeed. I'd also like to advise the meeting. And Richard Bates, can you confirm that we are going to receive four financial reports coming to the committee in July? Yes, you should be getting the first monetary reports for the new financial year. Obviously, the detailed report for the out-turn for the last financial year. But then you should also be getting some treasury management updates and the medium-term financial plan first update as well. So, yes, it will be a full-packed finance meeting. So I'll bring the troops. Thank you. Item number four, performance monitoring report 2324, quarter four, pages 7 to 56. And welcome to the lead counsellor for community and organisational development, Councillor Carla Mawson. Luke Harvey, corporate strategy and performance manager. Andrea Barnett, policy officer. And Robin Taylor, assistant director of organisational development. Councillor Mawson, would you like to comment prior to any introductory comments from Luke Harvey? I would, thank you, Chair. This report, as you know, is part of our performance monitoring framework and presents an overview of our performance against our key corporate performance indicators at the end of quarter four. Performance monitoring is the process to periodically collect, analyse and use information to actively manage our performance. To maximise positive impacts and minimise the risk of adverse impacts. It is, and I can't stress this enough, an important part of effective management because it provides early and ongoing information to help shape implementation. Most importantly, we need to ensure services are available, reliable and performing within agreed upon service level objectives. As mentioned in this report, we will be reviewing our KPIs for next year to ensure that they are actually fit for purpose, meaningful and are aligned to the key themes and objectives in our corporate strategy. Officers will also be reviewing the reporting template and making it much more visual and demonstrative of trends over time. The revised set of KPIs will be rolled out from quarter one of 2024 to 2025. The headline numbers of the 40 reported on in this quarter in the report that you've seen are that we have 14 green rated, we have two amber rated, 10 red rated, three with data only and six with no data. We also, on top of those 35, actually have five others which are annual reports that we have. One of those is red and on four of those we have no data. We do continue to monitor our performance and associated KPIs as shown in the report before you. And on that note, with your agreement chair, we are happy to take questions. Thank you very much. Luke, would you like to add anything? Thank you chair and no further comments for me at this point. Thank you. In the discussions that now follow, we'll try and organise the question order using the four headings within the report. Environment, Homes and Jobs, Community and Council. We'll begin with questions from committee members before questions from other councillors. And we'll finish the general questions and suggestions about the reporting of performance. So I'd like to start with a query raised at a previous meeting which still seems relevant. In March, in the quarter three report 2324, the O and S committee asked about the lack of a target for the household waste KPIs which are NV1 and 2, pages 26 and 27 of today's report. And a response was to be provided to members. Why other councils such as Waverley have a target and yet we present this KPI as recorded as data only as the figures are subject to seasonal change beyond our control. Is there any further information you can give the committee on this please? I'm happy to take that, thank you chair. So the KPI on recycling performance ought to have a target allocated to it. So as Councillor Mawson has suggested, as part of our KPI review, when we're looking at KPIs, they ought to have targets allocated. I would suspect that recycling is a big objective of this authority and indeed many others across the country. And Guildford Borough Council is a signatory to the Surrey Joint Waste Municipal Strategy for the management of waste. So that is currently under review at the county level, but the county level target at present is 60%. But it is anticipated that will increase in line with the requirements of the recently passed Environment Act. So I guess the short answer, which I've given you a rather long one there, is yes, we ought to add a target to that going forward. Right, so we'll get one, so thank you very much for that. Right, are there any other questions on environment information from committee members? And from none, committee members? Okay, thank you, in that case we can move on to the homes and jobs theme. Right, in January, quarter two report of the 2324 ONS committee. They asked for an explanation of the quarterly variations in the percentage of affordable housing units granted planning permission on eligible sites. That's H and J 11, page 36 of today's report. And this was to be provided to councillors by email. Similarly in January, the ONS committee asked about H, J and 10. The percentage of vacant town centre retail units today on page 35 of today's papers. And wanted to know more about what the council could do to encourage occupancy of the town centre shops. And was advised details will be provided by email. Is this information now available for the committee, please? There's one point, the percentage of town centre retail units. The external company who used to provide the data aren't able to provide us with the data at the moment. So we're looking at an external source to provide that for us. That's for H and J 10, so at the moment it's showing us no data. But we are looking to see if we can get it from another source. Thank you, the affordable homes. Sorry, granted planning permission. Yeah, I'll be happy. So that's H and J number 11. So the information I don't have to hand, but I can commit to providing a written response to this committee with this one. But in addition, any other questions that arise that we're unable to answer? Are you happy with that, Councillor Hines? I am, thank you very much. Thank you. Let me go on to Councillor Wyeth Price, who has two questions. Thank you. Mine are in relation to H and J 2, which is the number of empty homes. Why is the target set at 768? It seems a bit arbitrary. 768 empty homes, and why is that considered acceptable? I understand that there's always going to be periods of transition or empty houses for various reasons. But what was special about the Q4 2023 figures that actually made that the target? Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councillor Wyeth Price, for your question. Yeah, it's a very good question. A couple of caveats before I suggest a bit of some detail. So this particular indicator tracks a number of tenure types. So it's not just what's in the borough council's gift to control, but also other RPs and indeed the private sector. So I think this is possibly an example of when we undertake a review of the indicators, we make sure that the committee, the indicators align with what the council has in its gift to control, and particularly the targets as well. Clearly the council has an objective and an interest in reducing the number of empty homes in the borough. Give them your comments on the waiting list for social housing. I don't have the detail to hand in terms of how the target was arrived at, but I'll commit to a written answer on that point for you. Thank you. Second question, relating to the same thing. What are the plans for those 858 empty properties, even the ones that aren't in our gift to control? Do we try and encourage anything to get residents in those houses? And how many of those meet the decent home standard? And what is required to make use of them? Thank you. So that's detail I don't have to hand at present, but once I go back to the relevant service for an answer, I can include that in my response. Thank you. Thank you. You have it? Thank you. Councillor Williams. Thank you, chair. Yes, and mine was referenced on H and J2. Number of empty homes. Just to clarify, has an empty home, an empty property officer been recruited? Because it wasn't quite clear that I could see if they have actually been recruited, because I noted you heard that from 2023. If not, is there a reason in the delay if that hasn't been recruited yet? Luke, yes. Thank you. Again, that's information I don't have to hand, I'm afraid, but I will follow up. Thank you. Thank you. I've actually got another question here. This one refers to H and J2, the number of empty homes for public and private sector across the whole of the borough. That's on page 29. Do we actually have the number of empty homes for just the GBC housing stock, please? I've received a response from housing and they say it's difficult to provide a figure, but they say it's circa 100 empty homes which are part of the HRA that are void. And they say this is for various reasons, including major repairs, legacy voids and recently vacated properties. If you need some further information, I can provide it, get a written response for you. Okay, thank you. Dominic, you had another question. Is that on? Yes, thank you, Chair. It was just this other one here relating to the same thing. It's on page 32. Oh, sorry, yes. Page 32, H and J5, it was just a little bit touching upon the homeless families that are placed in B&Bs currently. Could it be explained a little further as to why there is no action plan for this section? There's no plan on that, even though we have a number of families and it has risen. Is this due to capacity issues of numbers of B&Bs available, so is that down to the capacity of what you can actually provide there? And would you have any figures sent to us about how long these families are placed here on average? So we can get an understanding of that, please. Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Councillor Williams. Again, I think that will be information I need to follow up with the service and provide a written response to you. Thank you, that's great, thanks. Thank you. Right, are there any other questions then on homes and jobs from committee members? Yes, I've got one more, actually. Thank you. This is around H and J12. Do you need the page number for that? It's 37. It says on there that 2.65% of homes do not meet the decent homes standard. I'm assuming that's 2.65% of council-owned properties that don't meet it. How many is that in total? How many in total is not something that we can give you this evening, unfortunately. But we can ask housing for that information. Okay, that would be good, because the percentage, if it's only one house, it's different. We can provide that. Thanks. And then, are all of those properties that don't meet the decent homes standard actually vacant at the moment? Or do we have tenants living in those properties, which I accept you probably can't answer now. But I think it's important to know that people where housing are in decent, meet the decent homes standard. And is that increase down to the problems with the contractors? Or is it other factors taken into play? That's actually something that we will need to take up with housing, but we can provide that when we actually respond on the first part of that question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions from committee members? None, committee members? Julia. Thank you. It's just a query, really. Were these questions circulated prior to the meeting? Because if they were, I would have hoped that we might have had some more answers. They were circulated prior to the meeting, but very close to the meeting. Right. Okay. Could I just add another one? Going back to the question of empty homes, I wonder whether, through you, Chair, whether Richard... We've recently, I think it was in the budget, brought something in around, was it council tax for empty homes or something? Could you just talk a bit about that in the hope that that might help bring some more homes into use? You should. Yes, thank you, Chairman. So, in the budget, we could actually make a policy change, actually for next April, basically, we had to do a year's notice, so that we could actually increase council tax on empty properties and help to bring them into use. But to say that, unfortunately, I had to have a 12-month lead-in, so... Thank you. Did you wish to comment on that point? Okay, can I go to Councillor Howard Smith first, please? Thank you. Okay, I've actually got three questions. You'll see what I can get away with. The first question was about H and J3. H and J3 has a target of 1686 over the preceding three years, so this is really a question about the target. Three years is 12 quarters. If you divide 1686 by 12, you get 140 per quarter. But we seem to have a tick in the last quarter when we did 63. So how does -- I mean, I've only got a no-level math, so please bear that in mind. But does that -- does the question make sense? Thank you. Does anyone want to take that? Thank you, Luke. Thank you for your question. Sorry, may I just clarify? In terms of your question, are you asking what the target is over the plan, to the local plan period, or over the reported period for the last few quarters? Sorry. Well, the target over three years is 1686, correct? And that's a target over three years, so I presume you have to reach that over three years. But we're reporting in quarters. So three years is 12 quarters. So if you divide that 1686 by 12, it comes to 140. So your target would presumably be 140 per quarter. But in this last quarter three, which is the last one that's reported, it says 63, but we've given it a green tick. Yep. Thank you for the clarification. I understand your point now. So this relates to -- the target will relate to that that's set in the local plan for the authority. And the building trades and the completion of properties does tend to be quite, to coin a phrase, quite lumpy. So it can be very difficult to set a target on a quarterly basis due to fluctuations in the building trade. And we've seen in recent years an uplifting in costs. And that can have an impact upon how long it takes for leading times and things like that. So targets, indeed, are always to a certain extent can be quite arbitrary. In planning, that can be more so. So we take a longer-term horizon, but certainly take your point. The way that we present this information going forward, we could possibly provide more information over the historic journey of how many units have been delivered in the borough against the -- indeed, that's if we do roll this going forward. I'd note, obviously, the planning committee will have oversight of the number of dwellings that are delivered across the borough of the plan period as well. So I guess it's a way of saying that we can look at how we present this better to illustrate the point that we're trying to get here. But the trajectory is quite lumpy when it comes to deliveries. I hope that answers your question. Thank you. Yeah, it does. It's just a little bit confusing to have not met the target but give her a green tick when you -- but anyway, yeah. So the second question was H and J4. Data not available. Is there any note why the data isn't available for affordable new homes? We seem to have three-quarters now with no data and we have no note why the data isn't available. Yes, Luke. Thank you. Yeah, happy to take that question. So the -- we rely on the services to provide the data for the performance report. I think in this instance, I think this report was compiled just as just before I joined, sadly. So we will follow up with the service to make sure that going forward, the committee has the information that it needs in order to scrutinize the performance. But, yeah, we'll pick that up and if I may, we can circulate it as a written response. That's great. Thank you. Yeah. Chair, could I just make the general point that if data isn't available, it would be useful to have a note to say why it's not available just to have blank -- Is that fair? Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you. I would agree with that, too. Thank you. Can I ask one last question? Yes, of course. Okay. H and J7, a team has implemented in their comments, a team has implemented a new system, which has significantly reduced the processing times for Cessna. This seems like a really good news story, really good news story. Would it be possible or how would we find out a little bit more about this system, which is obviously working and to be congratulated? Because this is obviously something -- I mean, it's brought it down half to -- you know, we've got a third. It's four days now. This is really excellent. So I don't know whether there's anything that could be added to that to explain how this new system is working so well. Thank you. Luke. Thank you. Yes. And one part of performance is obviously celebrating good news stories. So we will follow up with some additional information, certainly in subsequent reports, where we have good news stories, but also -- this is a well-worn phrase, if they didn't have a written response for you -- with some additional information on that. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions from non-committee members? No. Any other questions anywhere else? Okay. Let's move on to the community theme then, which is community KPIs, pages 39 to 41. So there were no questions shared in advance of this -- for this particular topic. So are there any questions from committee members? Sorry. Sorry. Do you have a question? Okay. So not on this subject then. Okay. And non-committee members? Okay. Can you bring Robin back in, please? Oh, sorry, Robin. I forgot to bring you back in. Sorry. No problem, Chairman. It was just on the previous comment made by the leader about the questions asked in advance. It was just to draw committee members' attention to paragraph 2.2, where we do ask for questions if possible two days in advance of the meeting. If we get that, we will definitely be able to provide more detailed answers on the evening and not so many where we have to undertake to come back with a written answer. So hopefully that will be helpful to officers and members alike. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Then we'll move on to the performance indicators under the heading of council, pages 42 to 55. Now, in March, I asked about COU5, which is the time taken to assess new housing benefit claims, which is page 46 of today's agenda, and indicated I would be reluctant to change the target without seeing what comparisons are with other councils. I understand this is in the remit of the executive and the proposal is to change the target to 16 days. But I would somewhat like to see comparisons with other councils, if they're available, and to know how long waits impact claimants. For example, do we offer interim payments if we don't process the claim within a certain time scale or any other mitigation factors, please. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So on the point of benchmarking, I think as a general principle, it would be useful for us to compare our performance against other local authorities. This particular indicator is one that most authorities do track and do report, and I think it is also one that's done in a similar way. So we shall undertake after this meeting to have a look, particularly with my aforementioned comments, on improving the format of the report to have a look at comparisons, particularly with other authorities in Surrey, as we're part of a benchmarking club with other Surrey local authorities. In terms of the detail around the targets, again, we will follow up with the service to provide some additional information in request to your question. Around targets, I know particularly from my previous authority, 16 days is a pretty quick turnaround, given the workload that the service does deal with. Where I worked previously was considerably higher than that, with a similar demographic profile to this borough. But again, I think what will help this committee is to see where we fit in the pack, as it were. So leave that with us, and we'll follow up. Thank you. I'd just like to say, Chairman, that the Surrey treasurers do meet regularly, and we do actually have a whole set of indicators such as these that we do actually compare. So that data does exist, so we will provide those to you fairly quickly. Okay, thank you for that. And the other part of the question was what mitigating factors do we have, if there is a significant delay in processing these claims? Are there any in existence? That's something, thank you, Chair, that's something that I don't have the information to hand. I shall follow up. Okay, thank you. Councillor Williams. Thank you, Chair. So just on page 46, we've just been discussing that. On universal credit and whether all new claims for housing benefit go via universal credit, and are there, therefore, considered -- is it basically all the universal credit, or are there other claims that come into this? I know we're saying it's new claims here, but is there any other way that people claim for this? I don't know if there's a pensioner's claim in a different way. Thank you. As I understand it, housing benefit claims, so the operative word will be new, so for new claims they go through the UC universal credit route. The exception may well be if there's a change in circumstances, so if a person's circumstances haven't changed, they may be in receipt of the benefit via the old mechanism to universal credit. But in terms of the detail, particularly in your point around how pensioners would claim, we'll follow up with the service to make that clear to the committee. But as I understand it, all new claims go via the UC route. Okay. And then can I just ask, so with the new system, the 16 working days, would that be just for the new claims, or would it potentially go for all claims? Thank you. Again, I'll follow up with the service, but as I would understand, a new claim would go through quite a longer process than a change event, for instance, because it would require a full assessment, whereas a change may well be just a particular circumstance, but certainly that would be in the written response when we get an answer from the service. Thank you. And I was just going to say just a comment there. So you mentioned that on average, did you say other councils take roughly, what did you say, sorry? I think my point was 16 days is pretty good. My previous authority was considerably longer. I don't have the figures at hand, but I think we were quite a bit longer than 16 days, but it can fluctuate. So 16 is, in terms of the pack, from my experience, from doing these benchmarking activities, pretty good. But yeah, we'll look at comparing with other authorities, because as Richard has said, that does exist, that data. So that's a good example of improving our format. I'm just going to say there's a positivity there. If you are managing to do a bit quicker than others and we're making some progress on that, that's a good point as well to highlight there. Thank you very much. Thank you. You have a second question, Councillor Williams, on CRU 16. Oh, yeah. Yes, so me again. So we have spoken about this in previous meetings. Sorry, Luke, if you weren't involved with that. Just the average call waiting times, I know it hasn't quite progressed. And it did mention that there's kind of an old standard method with that and that there might be a new call wait time that might be more appropriate. Is that a longer wait time or is that a shorter wait time? I'm not sure what the new standard may be with that. Hold the page for that again, that helps you. Yes, so it just said you start a review of the customer charter and the 22nd target and based on an outdated local government customer service. I respect that it's an old method. I remember back when I was sort of doing something similar in that field and it was 22nd. So I was just interested if there was a new standard on that, but happy to have that. And I appreciate that was one of my later questions. I do apologise, that was not on you. Thank you. Do you want to come back on that? Thank you. Yes, I'll take you up on the offer of the written response. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Burnett. Thank you very much. Along similar lines really, about the target of only the target to be set is 20% of interactions to by phone. Just wondering if this is a realistic figure as there are, as we know, many older residents who are not necessarily able to operate online. I speak personally for them having my own mum in that. Are there any best practice figures available from other councils? I was wondering. And any other analysis been done on the 47% of calls that are currently in the process of being taken. How many of those have actually been answered and been satisfied? It was a bit of a cheeky one, but are the long wait times on the phone calls deliberate to encourage people to use the online facilities? Because that's presumably the preferred measure. But I'm also concerned that it would have disadvantaged the most disadvantaged as well who might not have Wi-Fi and yeah. Wondering your views on those. Thank you. Thank you for sending us the questions, but they did unfortunately come late. So, oh, yes, I mean, we will use that tried and trusted terminology again. We will supply you with a written response to the whole committee so that everybody knows exactly the answers to your questions. I realised that that was a bit tongue in cheek. The last comment about is it deliberate that we do that? I'm fairly sure it's not. I'm not saying it's not, but I'm fairly sure it's not. And I wouldn't expect that our customer service organisational service set up would actually do that. So they're doing a great job. I'll get more information from them. Thank you. Great, thank you. Thank you. And I'd just like to ask another last question, actually it's on sickness. We have an average of 8.7 days in quarter four, which is page 42 of the papers. And I'd just like to know how this compares with the private sector and other local authorities. If you have those figures, I'd appreciate it. We do have that figure, Chair. The council, this came from HR. The council is not directly comparable to the private sector due to the number and variety of services we provide. Many of which are out in the community or at a desk. We do, however, benchmark against Surrey councils as a record absence in the same way. So we can provide you with a further update on what other Surrey councils are. Their stats are as well. Okay, thank you very much. What are there any other questions from committee members? Sorry, yes. Can I just come back in on that one point? Yes, of course, yeah. What we will need to do is, I mean, we're not saying we won't provide you with the details. We will provide the details. But we will have to confirm with the other councils that all of their detail, they're happy that we actually publish their details. Yes, I understand that, yes, thank you. Councillor King. Sorry Robin, I didn't see you put your hand up. Chairman, just a point of clarification on the previous question. The executive did adopt the new customer charter on the 16th of May. I don't think it sets out the detail that would answer the question that was asked about call wait time in seconds. But in terms of whether or not that charter had now been adopted, it has by the executive, so you can see those papers online. That's good, thank you. Councillor King. Thank you, Chair. I would like to turn discussion to COU14, which is in respect of corporate communications, digital channels including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Nextdoor, and our digital newsletter. A lot of the casework that I deal with, the end of it, or the beginning of it actually, is usually why didn't anyone tell me? And it occurs to me that we have fantastic numbers. I was really, really surprised to see the total number of followers on our Facebook and so on. How are we utilising those social media streams? What are we using them for? What kind of information are we broadcasting on these platforms? And is there a way we can use them to more effectively engage with residents? I appreciate that might not be a question that's answerable right now, but just bringing it to the fore I think is what I'm really trying to do. Can we find a way to use this better, to use these platforms better? Thank you. I would like that one. Councillor Mawson. Thank you. Yes, I mean all great points that you raise and I know the team have been looking at every aspect of the communication that they do. But we can certainly put all the points that you've just made to them and come back with a response as to how they're using it. Thank you. May I make two suggestions or areas that perhaps we could look into? The first is the design of reporting forms on the website. If you tell someone to report a waste issue or a noise issue, the forms are really unfriendly and very difficult to navigate. So I'm wondering if there's a way that we can make these much friendlier, particularly as Councillor Bennett has quite rightly brought up for our more vulnerable residents who aren't that happy or comfortable using the internet to report issues. There's many, many simpler types of forms that we could use than what's currently there. The other suggestion I have is Somerset Council. Somerset is of course a county council, but they do amazing things with email subscriptions to newsletters. So you can sign up to subscriptions on particular issues of interest and of course residents can opt in or out of them as they wish. And we could be making better use of email broadcasts, for example, to say hey, today's the day for your black bins or something, I know that's a minor example, but there must be a more powerful way that we can make use of email and WhatsApp communities, for example. Thank you. Councillor Mawson. Just like to say thank you to Councillor King and we will take those back to the team. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Any other committee members? None, committee members. Julia. Sorry, did you have your hand up? No, would you want to take a question from the committee first? A question from what? Was there a question from a committee member, sorry, before I come in? No, I saw Councillor Hough's move and I thought he was asking a question but he didn't. Sorry. Don't breathe. Thank you. So, Julia, please. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to go back to the question, thank you, from Councillor King around the use of digital communications on Facebook, Twitter, et cetera. I'm sure that there are many of us in the Council who have our own social media pages and I know that I see, I've obviously liked all of the Guildford Borough Council website, different channels, social media channels, sorry. So I would encourage you all, actually, if you have a social media presence, please sign up to follow all the different platforms and share that information because some of the graphics and some of the posts that are going out from the Council are very engaging, which probably explains why we've got so many followers and I also know that when residents leave comments and messages, the team are pretty good at getting back to people and answering questions when they can. I mean, obviously, there are only a certain number of them and they're not going to get to all of those comments and questions but the presence on social media is excellent, so if you do have the chance to look at it and share that information, please do. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Okay, then let's move on to the general comments on how performance is reported to the committee. Councillor Bellamy, you had a question on RAG system. Sorry, my apologies by surprise. That was in the pre-meeting, wasn't it, previously? No, just to say some feedback in regards to it, thanks very much for the report. Working in KPIs myself, this is very nice and easy to read. My only bit of feedback sort of really around it was what I mentioned at the pre-meeting is that the way the KPIs were sort of measured, in regards to you've got green and red and amber and amber is sort of 5%, red is sort of 5%. In my line of work, it's something either on target or it's below target, so perhaps maybe simplifying them a bit more would actually be useful. However, I do really like the fact that when I click on this, there is comments and data involved in each KPI that I look at. It does tell some very positive stories as well, in particular around the staff sickness, but again, I'm breezing over it there. That was perhaps a bit more clarity on the actual KPIs, because again, 5%, being below 5% could mean hundreds of thousands for one thing, or just a few quid somewhere here or there, so a bit more clarification around that, but otherwise I'll like the way it reads. Thank you. Anyone like to comment on that? From Councillor Bellamy? We're just grateful for the comment. Okay, just fair enough, thank you. Councillor Hives. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Yes, I was just making an observation which follows on from Councillor Bellamy's point, really, that there are a good number of KPIs to monitor performance, and whilst all of them are important, at present they sort of have the same arbitrary value, and I would suggest that maybe that some are more important than others. There are 10 red KPIs, but there might be a tendency to therefore focus on these to get them to green at the expense of some ambers, which are arguably more important. For example, perhaps H&J 5 is an important KPI, and arguably COU 9 and 10, less so. So I was going to suggest maybe that kind of be made clearer which of the 35 KPIs we might consider to be the more important, which I refer to in the question as perhaps the gold KPIs, and perhaps use those as a focus, rather than having all 35 having the same sort of arbitrary value. Thanks. Thank you. Chairman, helpful comments, which we will take account of in the review that we'll be doing of the framework and what we bring forward to the committee. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Bennett. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I suppose taking it a step further back, really. Quarterly summary, and I realise we submitted our questions late, so apologise for that, and that clearly I expect probably a written response rather than one right now. Shown on page 11 suggests that we have made known progress over the last 12 months. Is this because we've made, not necessarily a no-probe, but not a huge amount of progress, because the KPIs are being by a miss so much, or in some cases exceeded by so much, that they're not providing meaningful targets? Maybe do KPIs require review? Again, I realise that's a big question. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bennett, for your question. It's a good one, and it's an example where I think we could improve upon how the report is presented to committee. So what the table sets out in effect is the distribution of RAG status for the indicators. But what that doesn't tell us is, is it the same indicators that are consistently red, or indeed, are they moving between red, amber and green? So in terms of the, without looking at each indicator, it's quite hard to see. So when it comes to the links to the comments that have previously been made around presentation or formats, ideally it would be more visual and more interactive so we can clearly see the journey and how things are shaping up, or indeed if performance is consistent across courses. So we'll be looking to do that. But in terms of the general comment for the table that's presented, it's more around distribution. But when we put information, we need to make clear what its purpose is. So going forward, the new report will have that for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You happy? Thank you. Councillor Williams. No, not too much. Actually, Councillor Howard did touch upon it already, so I won't go into it too much. But just, yeah, I think I agree with Councillor Howard. Just a little bit more data on the node data KPIs would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you. I think we probably had an answer on that. So Councillor King, I think you wanted to say something. Just a comment from me to say how much I appreciate this report. I don't know whether, maybe it's my experience, but I think it's actually a really well-written report that's easy to navigate. I very much appreciate the hyperlinks in it. And I also wanted to say, there's a table in here. I think it's under the key headline from Q4 Performance where you say the time legs and data not possible to record in this report on 9.3. And the way you've summarised for me those reasons, I just find super helpful. Because I was reading through going, oh, why haven't we got data on that? Now I know why, because there's a table in there. So I do appreciate that. And as other Councillors have already mentioned, I really look forward to finding ways of getting the data that is not available. And if it's not possible to collect this data, how can we ask better questions? I think that would be really helpful if we got that information from officers, actually. That is the data not possible to collect? If so, what can we do better? Thank you. Thank you. Councillor smallson. Just to say thank you, very helpful comments. I agree that if the data is not available, then we need to find out why. And then we can discuss it in more detail with the officers concerned in all the service areas. Thank you. Any other questions from committee members? None, committee members? Councillor Smith. I was just going to take a step back from Dawn's question, page 10. The bottom of page 10 is 7.4. It mentions about a review. Presumably undertaking this review, this will be a review which is participants and this will be assistant directors and lead members, is that correct? There will be a dialogue between them to discuss other ways, better ways, improved ways of presenting the KPIs. And just a small question. Rolled out from quarter one, so that comes to us in July, does it? Thank you. Thank you and thank you for your question. In terms of the review, what we're looking to do alongside the new corporate strategy is to make sure that the council's key performance indicators align with the new strategy. So there are key priorities within there and there will be key outcomes. What our indicators ought to do is show how we're turning the dial in terms of our overarching corporate objectives. And also place them in a wider context as well. So additional information will be useful in how we benchmark and many of the comments that the committee has made this evening. In terms of the next steps, yes, so the quarter one report will come to this committee in September. So we aim to have that new suite of indicators for then and also the updated reporting template. I would note that my team, we look to continually improve, so it will be an ongoing journey. So initially what you see in terms of the document will look different, but we are continually to innovate as well. So looking at how we can use interactive tools such as dashboards, for instance, that are not just useful for this committee but indeed for others and residents and businesses as well of the borough. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's nine committee members. So turning to the recommendations on page nine. The committee is asked to consider and comment on the performance monitoring information presented in the report. I do have a couple of points here, but they've actually been well made by other members. I think the first one is about the lack of data and the references to the resource issues. And I was just one which presumably is linked to producing the data. So do we have any dates or timelines as to when we think that these issues can be resolved or perhaps bring them back to the next committee meeting, those such timelines? So that's the first point. Thank you, Chair. I think we can take it case by case for the indicators. So some of them, I think it's also a matter of how it's presented. So, for instance, with the recycling indicator, we report a quarter in arrears because it takes desperate circa 12 weeks for the performance to be validated. So that's less of a not available or a time lag. That's just the essence of that particular indicator. So what we can do for the ones that we flagged as not being available or indeed as a time lag as part of our comprehensive set of written response to the questions that the committee of race will make clear. And then what our next steps are in order to because I am keenly aware that a lot of the data that we do also rely on is from other organizations. Like Andrew's already mentioned about the vacancy rate in the town centre. Clearly, it's not all in our control. So once we do our response, we'll follow up on each point. Thank you. Thank you. And the last point, again, it's been talked about. This is the section 7.4, page 10, the KPI review. I was just wondering, basically, whether or not this committee will be -- it is intended to sort of share these KPIs ahead of the September meeting or seek our involvement in any way in the processes involved. Thank you. So we haven't yet scoped the details of the review. It's a bit of a fast-moving feast. And the same team that's looking at the corporate strategy will also be picking up the indicators. So what we'll do, we'll consult with key officers and relevant members and pull together a scope to share. That's agreeable to the committee. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, then. I think then all I need to do is to thank Councillor Mawson, Luke, Andrea and Robin and all the other contributors for this. And we'll move on. I just want to say that item number 5, of course, the Waverley transformation and collaboration program has been deferred. So on that note, I think we can close the meeting. So thank you. Can we stop the webcasting, please?