Frontline failures
Richard Cutcher • Published 17 Feb 2012 17:30
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Council under-performing in key areas, an internal report reveals
AN INTERNAL report has highlighted the damaging effects job cuts are having on frontline services.
In an officer-led report showing the Royal Borough's performance in key areas, almost half of the 27 selected categories were performing worse than expected.
The most embarrassing admission for councillors to stomach is that the waiting times for walk-in housing and council tax benefit customers which was, on average, 22 minutes in December - more than double the 10 minute target.
Referring to the poor performance, the officer's report states: "Target not met as the number of benefit trained staff has reduced."
The performance statistics presented to the Audit and Performance Review Panel on Monday night will prove difficult reading for the Conservative-led council, which has continued to boast that frontline services would not be compromised as it reduces council tax for the third consecutive year.
At the meeting, chairman Councillor Duncan McBride turned on Naveed Mohammed, policy and performance manager, and questioned why these statistics had been picked for particular scrutiny.
Councillor McBride said: "I couldn't for the life of me work out where this set of 27 performance indicators came from. It doesn't strike me as the most important things for us to be looking at."
Mr Mohammed said: "These particular indicators are what senior officers deemed important."
Other areas where the council is under-performing are the number of young people, aged 13 to 19, participating in youth service activities - 1,488 by the end of December as opposed to a target of 1,695 - and the time taken to process assessments of children in social care - 76% of cases were processed within 10 days in December. The target is 80%.
The statistics also revealed that almost 40% of live council contracts worth more than £30k have not been legally signed off - meaning the Royal Borough is currently paying for and receiving goods, works or services with no protection.
But councillor Richard Kellaway, lead member for finance, welcomed the report's transparency and said: "The items chosen are things that will hopefully illustrate problems which we can then get on top of.
"We are deliberately trying to look at some things which might not be as good as they should be."
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