Agenda item

M Rawdon provided the quarter two update for his services and asked Committee for any questions.

Cllr England said he had recently telephoned the Housing Service and waited 20 minutes and queried if this an example of one, obviously it’s not really average, but it was just my experience.  Is that typical and is the five minutes an average across all phone calls to the Council.  M Rawdon replied that it was an average across all of the phone calls.  You have peak periods where you have a wait that could be up to that time and then there are occasions when we can answer within the five minutes to achieve the target, but across the piece that is the average wait time.

Cllr Hollinghurst asked if there are any statistics on the number of calls that people make to the authority that are dropped by the incoming caller.  M Rawdon confirmed that we did.  Cllr Hollinghurst said perhaps because they were waiting a long time.  M Rawdon replied that we have an abandoned rate which is KPI CSU 11 call handling abandoned rate, so we have a target of 20% and this quarter it’s 14.7%.  We do have the opportunity and we have bought it in within the last six months, where if it is particularly busy we do offer a call back, where there is an opportunity where we have staff available and it’s within a certain period of time, we can enable that call back to happen, people can request a call back and we will call back within that working day.

Cllr Mahmood mentioned the Old Town Hall has very good satisfaction rates and everyone seems happy, 90 % range.  In terms of numbers attending are there a lot more people attending or has it gone up or down.  M Rawdon said that for this quarter it will be particularly low because we are over July and August there’s not many live performances, it’s about getting the building correctly maintained.  We had a presentation at the last Scrutiny and we sent a set of slides out which detailed performance numbers and gave a flavour of how successful it’s been.  M Rawdon will re-send if you haven’t seen them but believe they were emailed out.  Cllr Mahmood said it was something very useful for the community and it’s nice to know it is going well and is successful. 

Cllr England gave an observation on how the report seems to be like an extended edition of Members News, there’s lots of mish mash of the good bits, but in terms of comments on the performance of the service, I probably would have hoped to have the aspirations for improvement or perhaps a reference to the fact that the attendance at the adventure playgrounds is down or a comment.  The way it’s presented is very fair because it did refer to the things that you want to improve, but actually if you just read the report you wouldn’t pick that up.  Perhaps include information in the red amber green would it possible to adopt that approach the next time that we have performance information.  The Chairman said she was happy to take this offline and have a conversation about the format and then report back to Committee as she didn’t want a long discussion at the meeting.

Cllr England said perhaps the Committee might decide they want to do a deep dive or something like that.  The Chairman said that we’ll compare it with the other reports that we receive and we’ll have a review of items that have come and see if this particular report is out of kilter and report back to Committee hence she didn’t think it fair to be a discussion tonight, because you won’t get the right options and we’ll go too far off topic, several of the Officers have given up their time to present their reports.  The Chairman asked if Cllr England would be happy with that.  Cllr England said he was, as he said it was just an observation where he thought not for tonight but for the future.

Cllr Adeleke asked for an explanation on the Community Grants and wanted to know what the criteria is that you base your decision to award the grants as he was familiar with it and had been unsuccessful a few times for his ward.  What are the main things that you are looking for and who are the decision makers in terms of awarding the grants.  Cllr Adeleke had a grant that was rejected on the basis that grants had been awarded on two previous occasions and wasn’t too pleased on the basis that as we had been awarded grants previously and the grants they are now applying for is practical  and useful and of benefit, does your remit say there’s a limit to the amount of times you can apply for grants.  M Rawdon advised that there’s lots of set criteria in terms of what the team applies for any application that comes in.  I can send you a list of the criteria is, but it would look how it fits in with the corporate objectives, it looks at previous application and awards because it is about supporting projects to kick start them and it’s not necessarily in place to help maintain that project for a future long term aspirations.  There are other aspects around we mentioned at Committee before, where cultural project applications are awarded more points, there is a whole host of different categories that are scored points against and will happily send through the criteria.  The panel is a mix of 7 or 8 officers and they debate around the scoring, which we try and keep as objective as possible and it’s led by his team, there is officers from around the Council to support that process.

Cllr Adeleke asked who the Portfolio Holder.  M Rawdon replied that it was Cllr Banks.

Cllr Adeleke mentioned that these grants are very valuable in the community and they really appreciate it and it has been quite a lot of people.  We as Members we get our ears bent to say we need this or we want this done, where does our involvement come into it in terms of you setting the criteria.  Cllr Griffiths thought Cabinet set the criteria quite a long time ago and it had to be linked to the corporate strategies.  M Rawdon confirmed that’s correct.  Cllr Griffiths said that Council have set the strategy behind the process and linked to the core strategies.  The Chairman requested a copy of the criteria is sent to Committee. 

Action: M Rawdon

Cllr Hollinghurst asked if there is no democratic oversight to this process.  M Rawdon advised that there is a Portfolio Holder decision which is published. Cllr Hollinghurst said there is no democratic process.  M Rawdon replied yes.  Cllr Hollinghurst said he wasn’t impressed. 

Cllr Banks commented that the process was adopted through Cabinet, through full Council, it’s using the objectives that we have set as a Council.  Cllr Banks asked what else could be put in place.  Cllr Hollinghurst said he would like some sort of Member involvement other than the Portfolio Holder.  Cllr Banks highlighted that Members involvement is in promoting within our communities and with our groups, the fact that there is a grant that you can claim.  If Members were involved in the process there would be a lot of declared interests, because we are the champions of coming in and claiming the grant.

Cllr Freedman said that the report mentioned improvements to Berkhamsted and wondered what they are.  M Rawdon replied that it was mainly around the layout and flow, the positioning of desks, there has been some improvements around the décor.  M Rawdon asked if Cllr Freedman had visited recently.  Cllr Freedman said that he had but that he is guessing that as he’s going there after hours it’s probably behind the curtain.  M Rawdon confirmed that it was, it was done to make it a little bit more attractive but also around the flow of the set-up of the desks.

Cllr Griffiths advised that if you go to Dacorum.gov website and put in community grants there is a whole lot of information, tells you what you can apply for, what the policy is and how it all works.

The Chairman mentioned the telephone system and the problems with recognising voices and it often puts me through to housing regardless of which department I’ve asked for.  The Chairman said it had been reviewed before where we’ve had similar issues, but if there is a way it could be improved, that would be great.  M Rawdon said okay.

The Chairman wanted to make sure that we are clear on the question asked by Cllr England earlier about the adventure playgrounds, because she has the reports from the September meeting and the comments you raised about attendance was actually covered in that meeting and her understanding is that she wouldn’t be expecting to see it at every meeting, but for it to be reported quarterly and believes it addressed your concerns and it was raised about attendance levels.  I wouldn’t be expecting to see it in November, I would expect to see an update quarterly on that particular issue, so I don’t think that it’s been deliberately hidden, but it would be reviewed quarterly.  L Roberts advised that it’s not just being a specific thing it was more about we have a full picture rather than just an extended Members news, so she is aware of what’s being said and will have a look.