This meeting of the Scrutiny Committee was scheduled to include updates from the Climate Change Task and Finish Group, the Playhouse, Arts and Cultural Quarter Task and Finish Group, the approval of the Committee's work plan and scheduled to consider a report on the council's performance, in particular on its finances and its performance against its key performance indicators.

Budget Monitoring and Performance Report

The committee was scheduled to consider a report on the council’s performance against its key performance indicators, in particular its finances and its performance against its key performance indicators up to the end of August 2024.

Housing Revenue Account

The report scheduled for consideration showed the Housing Revenue Account to be £85,000 better than budgeted, with a predicted surplus of £0.749 million for 2024/25. The report, which was prepared by Jacqueline Van Mellaerts, the Assistant Director of Finance, attributes this mainly to changes in legislation regarding how retained capital receipts are calculated.

Non-Housing Capital Programme

The report showed the Non-Housing Capital Programme to be in a positive position, with a predicted surplus of £0.017 million against a total budget of £47.181 million. This included a request to reprofile £0.120 million of expenditure into the 2025/26 budget.

The report explains that By reprofiling the budget into a later year, means that no additional future financing for the scheme will be required .

If this reprofiling is approved, the report estimates an adverse variance of £0.73 million, largely due to roofing projects within the programme occurring [at] higher costs than expected.

Housing Capital Programme

The report shows the Housing Capital Programme to be in a negative position with a predicted adverse variance of £0.118 million against a total budget of £69.840 million.

Key Performance Indicators

The report identifies sixteen Key Performance Indicators, of which two were highlighted.

Invoice payments continue to be reporting an awareness level, but is showing improvement due to changes in process implemented.

The other highlighted indicator was the number of customer complaints responded to within the target time:

A higher than anticipated number of complaints were responded to after [the] 20 day period stated within the councils complaints policy during the month of August. The majority of these complaints were responded to between 1-5 days past the 20 days, with a smaller number responded to up to 10 days after this point.

The report explains that some complaints take longer than the twenty working days the council aims to respond to complaints in, saying

Where complaints are complex, or require more in-depth technical investigation the process of responding to complaints require longer periods of time to resolve; where this occurs, residents are kept updated as to the progress of investigation and provided with a new expected response date.

Clear, Hold, Build

This was listed on the agenda without any supporting documents.

Climate Change Task and Finish Group - Update

This was listed as an update.

Playhouse, Arts and Cultural Quarter Task and Finish Group - Update

This was listed as an update.

Work Plan

The Committee was scheduled to review its work plan, which it had previously discussed during its meeting on 15 October 2024. The committee had previously agreed to add a review of sports facilities and play pitches to its work plan, and to consider extending it into the 2025/26 financial year.