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Agenda item

Croydon Renewal and Improvement Plan – Performance Reporting Framework & Measures

The Scrutiny & Overview Committee is asked to review the attached Cabinet report and provide feedback on the proposed framework.

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report setting out a framework for monitoring the performance of the Council. The report had previously been considered by the Cabinet on 7 June, who had referred it to the Committee for its input on the content. It was highlighted that the version presented was an early draft and any feedback given would be considered when compiling the final version that would be available in September 2021.

It was noted that the framework presented to the Committee seemed to be a business plan framework, rather than one specifically for the Croydon Renewal Plan, with it questioned whether there was a framework in place to assess the delivery of the renewal plan. It was acknowledged that there were gaps in the framework presented to the Committee, who had been asked to comment on an early version with the intention of using the feedback to address any gaps identified. It was highlighted that the framework was based on the Croydon Renewal Plan which took account of other reviews.

Given the recent issues experienced by residents at Regina Road, it was questioned whether the final document would enable the Council’s leadership to identify areas of concern at an early stage, to prevent such issues being repeated in the future. It was confirmed that a section on housing had not been included in the version presented at meeting, as it had been held back to allow for it to be designed with the new Executive Director for the service. It was confirmed that the report would be in two layers, what was reported to the Cabinet and a more detailed operational level version.

It was questioned whether the framework would allow the political and corporate leadership of the Council to maintain line of sight over services. It was confirmed that the framework would need to provide feedback from residents on the quality of services provided and work was underway with the Communications team to establish the best mechanism for this. It was envisioned that the reporting framework would be subject to ongoing refinement as new sources of information became available.

In response to a question about how the Council’s financial controls would be monitored, it was confirmed that there would be a separate finance report and the framework would only include those areas of finance linked to the renewal plan. The financial report would also be provided to the members of the Scrutiny & Overview Committee, which given the concerns of the Committee about the financial controls of the Council, would enable the progress made with delivering the budget to be closely monitored.

It was suggested that the framework could look to draw in comparative data from other sources such as LG Inform, although it was acknowledged that some local authorities did not share as much data as others. For the comparative data that was available, there also needed to be certainty that the same measurements were being used to ensure there was a like for like comparison.

Given there was concern that the framework may contain too many indicators to effectively allow Scrutiny to identify where there were areas of concern, it was highlighted that the framework was being built from scratch and would be refined following feedback. It was agreed that there would be further consultation with the Scrutiny Chairs to produce a dashboard for Scrutiny that selected key data from the framework.

At the conclusion of the item to Chair thanked the officers for attending the meeting and providing an update on the development of the framework.

Conclusions

At the end of this item the Scrutiny & Overview Committee reached the following conclusions: -

1.    Although it was acknowledged that there seemed to have been considerable progress made with delivering the Croydon Renewal Plan, there was significant concern that performance monitoring framework was still being developed. Without this in place it was difficult to make an informed judgement on the delivery of the Plan.

2.    It was agreed that consideration needed to be given to adding further financial performance indicators to the framework.

3.    It was concluded that further consideration needed to be given to how the Council’s management of its large contracts could be reflected in the framework.

4.    It was agreed that framework should be informed by good practice at other local authorities.

5.    The suggestion that Scrutiny Chairs would work with officers to design a dashboard that was suitable for scrutiny as supported and as such it was agreed that any final judgement on the framework would be deferred until this work was complete.

 

Supporting documents: