Issue - meetings

That the 2012/13 draft Annual Performance Report be approved for publication.

The Chief Executive introduced the report and delivered a presentation for Members to endorse the 2012/13 draft Annual Performance Report for publication following approval by Cabinet.  He thanked the Policy & Performance Manager and Performance Team Leader for their work on the report and reminded Members that the document would need to be adopted by the statutory deadline of 31 October.  The Annual Performance Report met the statutory requirement to review the Council’s progress against the Improvement Priorities and overall progress for the previous year 2012-13.  A public summary would be produced for inclusion in ‘Your Community, Your Council’.

The Policy & Performance Manager provided an explanation on the statutory requirements for the content of the report.  She reminded Council that it was important to recognise that performance indicators were only part of the total picture.  It was noted that 56% of Improvement Targets continued to improve or remained at top ranking whilst 44% showed a downturn (which in the majority of cases was marginal), with 61% meeting or exceeding the target set.  In national rankings, Flintshire had performed better than the Wales average in 59% of indicators and was placed top of ranking in five indicators and bottom in one.  A total of 37 indicators were in the top and middle quartiles compared with 21 last year.

The Chief Executive said that during the current transitional year, the former ten Improvement Priorities for 2012/13 had been condensed for 2013/14 and it was important for the report to compare the performance across both.  The statement of progress as at 31 March 2013 set the close of the year reported to Cabinet and Overview & Scrutiny showed that good progress had been made in five of the Improvement Priorities with satisfactory progress achieved in the remainder.

The Policy & Performance Manager highlighted changes to the format and content of the Plan to make it easier to read and identify outcomes, together with examples of good practice and areas for improvement.  Outcomes for each sub-priority would be determined and linked to the Improvement Plan for tracking.  Links to the Improvement Plan would help the reader to understand past and future actions.  The Chief Executive said that an up-to-date progress statement against the eight new Priorities which had recently been reported to Cabinet would be submitted to Overview & Scrutiny committees to review in their respective portfolios.

In moving the recommendation in the report, Councillor Aaron Shotton thanked the officer team for putting together the report and referred to the complex nature of the new Improvement Plan in which the approach to Priorities and Improvement objectives had been streamlined.  The proposal was seconded by Councillor Bernie Attridge.

Councillor Richard Jones queried the recommendation to endorse the report as Members had previously been requested to approve.  He welcomed the continuous improvement in trends and queried consistency in the practice for business cases on regional partnerships to show evidence of benefits specifically for Flintshire and the need to ensure that the value of services was not reduced.  On sub-priority  ...  view the full minutes text for item 48