Agenda item

The Environment and Transport Performance Dashboard shows progress made against targets set for Key Performance Indicators.

1.            The Business Intelligence Manager - Performance, Mr Fitzgerald, introduced a report on the end of year performance against targets for the Key Performance Indicators with RAG alerts to show progress.  He highlighted that there had been good overall results which were mainly green in the RAG rating summarised on page 34 of the report.  He advised Members of late information stating that results for March for  the Environment Planning and Enforcement showed that none of the indicators had changed status but had improved and the Kent Scientific Services indicator was now green with a final figure of 739k.

2.            Mr Fitzgerald responded to questions by Members as follows:

a)    Dr Eddy welcomed the report being moved to the beginning of the agenda

b)    Mr Wilkin advised that there was a note of caution in terms of the information on page 36 as this dealt with volume.   He explained that Highways teams carried out testing on the highway networks.  If the number of enquiries from the public were low this did not indicate the state of the road but what the public had observed.

c)    Mr Balfour explained the red RAG rating for the Public Rights of Way (PROW) was due to problems with the PROW website for fault reporting.  He considered that this reinforced the point about highways and safety, as increasing the use of the PROW it was difficult keeping up the preferred standard as it was too expensive.  Following a safety audit decisions had to be made to close bridges and pathways as they were deemed unsafe.  There would be a conflict with the budget moving funding to support vulnerable groups or the public rights of way system.

d)    A comment was made that borough and district councils also had to make financial savings and questioned whether devolving some of the services was too much.  Mr Balfour explained that devolving the services was about ensuring effectiveness and efficiency.

e)    Mr Wilkins assured Members that KCC was not complacent and worked in partnership with the twelve Kent borough and district councils on waste management but agreed that the enforcement of the recycling of materials could be revisited ensuring that the public put the right materials in the correct bins.  He added that when the market value of recyclable materials was low in value the collectors were more particular that the recyclable material was not contaminated.

f)     Mrs Cooper advised that the Trading Standards performance would, in future, include where it had made an impact.

g)    Mr Wilkin advised that it was unlawful to put waste into someone else’s bin.

h)   Mr Wilkin confirmed that customer statistics were taken seriously and the figures were lower than hoped.  When issues were reported by the public, officers were not good at reporting back giving the public updates on their issue.  This needed to be improved and the department was currently looking at mechanisms to send text messages.

i)     Mr Pearman sought acknowledgment that 98% of the work was a good effort with reduced resources.  The performance dashboard was a method of giving early warnings on what was going well and what was going in the wrong direction.

j)      Mr Balfour agreed to forward the details of how long the PROW fault reporting system had been off line outside the meeting.

3.            RESOLVED that the responses to questions by Members and the report be noted.