Agenda item

Lara Wells, Business Manager, Corporate Policy and Improvement:

a)    presented a report on performance indicators for the Directorate of Housing and Investment (DHI) for Quarter 3 of 2024/25 (October – December) which covered those measures related to the Council’s responsibility as a landlord

b)    reported that Lincoln Tenant’s Panel had been consulted about this report and their comments had been responded to by the relevant services, as detailed at paragraph 2.1 of the officer’s report

‘

c)    added that regular monitoring of the Council’s performance was a key component of the Local Performance Management Framework and supported its ongoing commitment to continuous improvement of Council services

d)    confirmed that there were a total of thirty-three performance indicators monitored by DHI; an overview of performance for the third quarter of 2024/25 against such indicators was attached at Appendix A to the report

e)    explained that the template for Appendix A included performance ‘direction of travel’ information to aid interpretation of how performance fluctuated between quarterly reporting periods; benchmarking comparisons would be provided annually at each fourth quarter

f)     reported that during the third quarter of 2024/25, 16 performance measures had met or exceeded their agreed target, four had performed close to target and five had performed below target, the remaining measures were volumetric

g)    highlighted that of the 5 measures performing below target, one was a corporate measure related to call handling in the customer contact centre; this measure ‘CS3’ related to all calls received by the contact centre, and therefore included data not linked to Housing Services, and was also reported to Performance Scrutiny Committee

h)    explained that measure ‘HSSC3’ related to Anti-Social Behaviour and consisted of 16 sub-measures as detailed further within section 9 of the officers’ report

i)      confirmed that sections 5 to 12 of the report highlighted the key conclusions drawn from Appendix A

j)      invited comments and questions from Members of the Committee.

Members discussed the content of the report, commented, asked questions and received relevant responses from officers as follows:

Question: Was the income from the approved former Victory Pub site on Boultham Park Road earmarked for spending later?

Response: The development would be completed by the end of May 2025 and hopefully occupied mid-summer.

Question: Performance targets in respect of Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) were showing as green. It was noted as a serving Tenant’s Panel representative on the Anti-Social Behaviour Group, and there were two ASB Groups in existence, one of these groups had closed some cases without the tenants’ consent.

Response: The team in charge of generic housing complaints had become too busy. The ASB Housing Manager was now dealing with lower level ASB to assist with workloads and was working well with the Public Protection and ASB Team to assess problems.

Question: Instances of ASB in relation to pets and animal nuisance had reached 29 cases by Quarter 3. Which cases had been resolved?

Response: It had been agreed that these new volumetric performance indicators would be reviewed by this Committee once every six months. The work programme for 2025/26 would be amended accordingly to include data on cases resolved.

Comment: Since the introduction of three housing officers in his Ward to cover ASB, Rent and Tenancy Management, the member in question had seen significant improvements in issues being addressed.

Comment by Chair: It would be helpful to see further information provided within this report with reasons why problems had been encountered which affected performance figures.

Question: Performance Indicator 22 in respect of percentage of complaints replied to within target time was shown as green, although we were being told average time to answer a call to Customer Services had increased.

Response: The figures were based on outturn in 2023/24 , however the officer would check the figures and advise members accordingly.

RESOLVED that:

1.    Further information be provided to members as requested above.

2.    The Housing Scrutiny Sub-Committee Work Programme be amended for 2025/26 to include six monthly updates on number of cases resolved in respect of performance indicator HSSC 3: number of ASB cases by type.

3.    The current performance outcomes during Quarter 3 of the financial year 2024/25 to date, be noted.