Agenda item

Cllr T Adams – Council Leader introduced the report and noted that many of the issues had been discussed at the previous meeting, then thanked officers for preparing the report and invited questions from Members.

Questions and Discussion

       i.          Cllr V Holliday asked whether performance benchmarking could be included alongside the performance report, in place of the contextual measures report or receive all three reports at the same meeting. She added that it would also be helpful to know whether any learning could be gained from the CIPFA nearest neighbours where they performed better than NNDC. She added that the report showed that other Councils were routinely reporting better performance than NNDC in certain areas, and there ought to be insights that could be gained from this. The CDA replied that the benchmarking report was very much owned by the Committee with Members determining which measures were reviewed, unlike regular performance monitoring of the CP. She added that the reports had been separated to avoid confusion, though this could be reconsidered again in the future if new datasets were included within the CP. Cllr T Adams stated that it was unfair to suggest that all performance was poor, as many measures showed improvement, whilst others were out of date and some datasets such as recycling were misrepresentative, given that NNDC did not collect food waste. He added that Planning performance was also exemplary, which showed that NNDC was leading the group in some aspects of performance benchmarking. Cllr V Holliday accepted that performance was improving, but suggested that there were still areas where lessons could be learnt from other Councils.

      ii.          Cllr L Shires referred to the CIPFA 8 measure of total expenditure per resident on p123, and asked when the data would be updated, as it was from over three years ago. The CDA replied that deadlines had been missed for submitting this data as it required the completion of audited annual accounts which were still delayed for many authorities. She added that under normal circumstances there was expected to be approximately one year’s delay.

     iii.          Cllr C Cushing referred to CIPFA 9a and 9b on p123, and asked why both were included as they appeared very similar. The CDA replied that it had been unclear which dataset the Committee wanted to review, but this could be reconsidered in October following the agreement of datasets used to inform the CP. Cllr T Adams noted that significantly more residents were included in dataset 9a which impacted performance. He added that the demographics of the District skewed the figure, and it may be prudent to consider a different measure of economic performance in October. Cllr V Holliday suggested that many pensioners were still economically active, and this should not be overlooked. The CE stated that whilst he accepted Cllr Holiday’s comments, the report had to take into account nationally available datasets, alongside local variances and context that would impact performance such as demographics in the case of North Norfolk. He added that as a rural District, it was a fact that rural authorities received less funding per head of rural population for service provision than metropolitan boroughs, which meant that Councils were not working in a level playing field.

    iv.          Cllr J Toye suggested that other Councils may be more focused in particular areas than NNDC, and this may need to be taken into account as part of the context in which performance data was reported.

      v.          Cllr L Shires referred to the CIPFA 9a dataset and suggested that it was unfair to assume those over 65 may want to continue working, and it was therefore a somewhat flawed measure of economic performance.

    vi.          It was suggested following discussion of performance report content that it would be preferred if all three reports were on the same agenda.

   vii.          Cllr V Holliday asked whether further review would take place for areas where the Council was not performing as well as its CIPFA nearest neighbours. Cllr T Adams replied that measures would be reviewed to align with the new CP, and it may be better to wait until these were aligned to consider any further reviews.

  viii.          The recommendation was proposed by Cllr P Fisher and seconded by Cllr S Penfold.

RESOLVED

1.     To receive and note the headline benchmarking data for NNDC compared to the CIPFA benchmarking group.

ACTIONS

1.     Three performance reports to come to Committee on same agenda going forward.