To consider the Managing Director's Half Year Performance Report.

The companies remained on target to deliver the MTFP. The Managing Director was pleased to report the companies’ strong performance for the first half year, as illustrated by Appendix 1 to his report.  Particular attention was starting to be paid to customer service matters. Whilst there appears to be high satisfaction with the quality of repairs, qualitative customer service feedback points to areas for improvement, such as better communication with customers,  the time  taken to complete repairs and also managing customer expectations more effectively. Repair work was often broken into two phases, a preliminary visit by a surveyor, followed up by the work itself. The ambition was to combine the two wherever possible. Finding means of getting customers to identify the building difficulties they were facing with accuracy was important and some self-help advice was available.

 A major change programme was underway in Building Services. A more robust qualitative view of City cleanliness was desirable and thought was being given to securing this via OxClean, the Citizen’s panel or perhaps the City Ambassadors could help obtain views from visitors. 

Certain properties generated disproportionate amounts of work, principally as a result of their residents and or state of the buildings. With the help of GIS mapping it was intended to identify these ‘hot’ properties and so take steps to ameliorate the disproportionate demand they cause.

Health and Safety was recognised as being of crucial importance and was being managed robustly. A Health & Safety Committee had recently been established and benefitted from a strong and positive relationship with the unions. There was currently a focus on the health and safety culture and a health and safety week was planned in two weeks’ time.

Speaking about progress against the companies’ 4 key objectives for 2018/19 the Managing Director said the much needed change programme for Building Services was progressing well.  The processes surrounding repairs and maintenance could be improved, as recognised by the employees, and technology would have a significant part to play in that. There was a wish to increase the capacity for construction work and so maximise the work which could be done for the council.

Responding to the Managing Director’s report the following observations were made among others.

·         The overall picture at this point of the year was very positive with the companies demonstrating organisational and financial resilience

·         This was particularly so in the context of the companies’ first year of operation and the changes consequent upon that

·         The performance indicators were “traditional” and what might be expected of an in-house organisation; thought should perhaps be given to indicators better suited to an arms’ length organisation.

·         The value of some indicators (eg satisfaction with line painting) was questioned

·         Should void turnaround target times be tighter?

·         The Managing Director said that all issues to do with indicators would be addressed by the development of a balanced scorecard.

·         It was agreed that the time to celebrate the companies success more widely would be at the end of the financial year.

·         The Chief Executive said while it was right to acknowledge the companies’ success at this point it should be remembered that the Council had been at pains to provide an environment which would facilitate that success in the early days of operation.

·         The Chair asked for thanks to be passed to all staff on behalf of the Shareholder