The Committee received a report that had been considered by the Mayor in Cabinet on the 25^th September it outlines the process for monitoring the timely and effective delivery of the Strategic Plan to improve outcomes for residents. The main points of the discuss are summarised below:

The Committee:

·         Noted that the report presents a status assessment using the traffic light colour designations; Red, Amber or Green. This provides a visual and immediate way of identifying areas of challenge that push LBTH to achieve improvement. e.g. Amber means is above minimum expectation but it has not achieved the stretch target;

·         Noted that what was the ceiling target achieved in the previous year becomes this year’s floor target so as to promote continuous improvement;

·         Commented that it been helpful to have an understanding of how targets have been developed;

·         Noted that Cabinet Member annually agree the stretch targets with officers and partner agencies;

·         Noted that the Council’s improvement journey has been a steep one, and whilst there is no doubt that LBTH will need to continue improving, there is also recognition that sustainability is important;

·         Noted that improvements and new ways or working take time to bed in, and LBTH target setting principles take these challenges into consideration;

·         Noted that LBTH will only set targets for performance indicators and not for contextual indicators. Contextual indicators are those less directly in the council’s control but which are important for prioritising council investments and actions;

·         Noted that targets will be aligned to an external target, such as a statutory, national or Mayoral manifesto target, or target in strategies and policies where they have been agreed by Cabinet or a Tower Hamlets Partnership group;

·         Noted that LBTH aim to improve on benchmark performance position within the appropriate benchmark family group or maintain a high level of performance where LBTH are among top performing councils e.g. Aiming to achieve the top quartile nationally as a minimum which is a considerable length of travel;

·         Was advised that regarding measuring the proportion of homeless households who have been made permanent offers of accommodation of two bedrooms or more.  This was dependent on the supply of housing let’s as properties are being sold by landlords.  With the expectation being that the proportion of households will be offered voids although the number of voids in decline;

·         Agreed that the level of homeless households moved into permanent accommodation should be added to the Work Programme;

·         Indicated that it wished to gain a clear understanding as what dictates the targets that LBTH e.g. staff sickness and why is that indicator off target and what is going to be done to address that.  In response it was noted that staff sickness is an objective that the Head of Paid Service needs to deliver on;

·         Noted that performance indicators should be a set that directly relates to LBTH and scrutiny will have the opportunity to comment upon the indicators;

·         Commented that it wanted to receive a more detailed explanatory note to explain how the set of strategic performance indicators underpin the Council’s new outcome based accountability approach to service delivery e.g. recycling/refuse collection;

·         Indicated that it wished going forward to look at strategic performance indicators so as to make developmental recommendations;

As a result of discussions on the report the Committee RESOLVED to add to its Work Programme the strategic performance indicators in relation to:

(i)            Work Path;

(ii)          Homelessness;

(iii)         Adult and Social Care and

(iv)         Housing and Regeneration Scrutiny Sub Committee to looks at Housing and Medical Assessments.