Cllr Fry, Lead Member for Performance monitoring presented the report. He said he did get an officer response from the previous scrutiny comments. However there are still a lot of issues with the way that performance is monitored and presented in these reports.

He made the following comments on the performance report:

·         BI002a and B1002b – why are the targets 0?

·         CE002 – commentary – why can’t Finance provide a figure for income excluding VAT – not very useful?

·         CS003 – Presentation of information – why does commentary have to fill 2 pages.

·         PC027 –The result is 73,390 but the target is 420. And the result from last year was 2,500.  It should be explained that the target is an error.

·         PC004 – Grow in level of active participation in dance – why so specific? Would it not be better to measure How much people are using leisure centres.

·         B1001 – commentary states they have not received any data for several months – why doesn’t  the officer do more to find it out?

·         Indicators that are reported only annually (LG002) need to be presented in a separate report to quarterly one.

·         There’s a real mix of comparisons some indicators compare performance with month before others compare with the same month of year before, which was often more useful.

Cllr Simmons said that the local business spend  is off target and  needs to be raised with CEB

Cllr Hayes said that it feels that a strategy is developed, and the evaluation and monitoring measures are done as an afterthought.  Is there a good reason for monitoring to be done by one individual?. Is training given to assist these officers?

Cllr Pegg said it appears to be a huge time serving exercise.  People need to consider it important and not try and fit everything into the same box.

Cllr Henwood suggested that the relevant performance indicators should be presented at the beginning of all reports going to members.

The Scrutiny Officer explained that collating the performance monitoring report is the responsibility of the Head of Business Improvement.

Cllr Hayes said it was very important for officers to do this well and for scrutiny to see these reports.

Recommendation

Cllrs Fry and Chapman to meet with the Head of Business Improvement and discuss their concerns and how they reports could be improved.