Agenda item

The Quarter 4 Performance Report  was introduced by Felicity Williamson, Strategic Intelligence and Performance Advisor. 

The Chair asked a number of questions about the information being reported on the Transport and Connectivity theme as follows:

-        From Q4 to Q1 the overall RAG rating progress had changed from red to green.  Which was initially quite surprising.  However, it was requested for consistency purposes if it could be agreed going forward, that performance reporting should track a project through from start to finish, which isn’t currently the case.  Also, if what is being measured has changed, it should clearly say so in the report.  The Strategic Intelligence and Performance Advisor said they agreed, this was a valid point.  But the challenge here was the annual cycle of the Business Plan, because Q4 related to the 2022/2023 and Q1 related to the 2023/2024 Business Plan.  So, the actions were now different and included a new set of metrics.   

-        The reference numbers had changed which made it very difficult to track the progress of actions over time.  Some actions no longer existed with no explanation of why. Which meant some things that were being tracked were not now. This all meant it was very difficult to take a long-term view of any progress that was or wasn’t being made.  The Strategic Intelligence and Performance Advisor said that the numbers were however unique to each individual annual Business Plan.  The Chair replied that the issue was more about trying to track actions that hadn’t been completed Q4 and then subsequently not being able to continue to track actions and projects across to the next municipal year.  Officers did concur that this was an issue to be resolved if the actions and numbers assigned were only relevant to that particular year. They were however, just starting to plan for next year’s business planning process so would feedback this issue.

Other Members concurred about the importance of being able to track the progress and performance of long-term projects across multiple years.  

A Member said they were generally positive about the new performance dashboard and said it was helpful. There were still said to be some issues to be ironed out such being able to easily navigate the system but that was partly Members learning how to use it rather than the system itself.

A discussion was had about why some themes show overall progress as green when some actions within that theme were showing as red. It was said that each Director makes a judgment on what status or colour the theme should show as.  But it was about best overall fit for that theme rather than the individual picture.  This was the first time this had been used and officers were picking up issues to feedback so they could make some things clearer going forward.

A Member asked about the delivery of major infrastructure works across the city which were very large and complex.  In future, will Members be able to drill down further into the themes and the detailed information about individual projects and be able to see if they are on track or delayed etc?

The interim Executive Director agreed that it was complex and provided some examples such as the Portway Park and Ride was showing as red when it had been completed.  With regards to the Bath Road works the Council had asked WECA to help and this had resulted in being able to re-baselined figures. This is part of the normal process for completing large projects and makes them much more deliverable.  It was agreed that at the Commission’s next meeting this level of detail would be provided for the major infrastructure works as part of the Capital Programme Update.

Members reiterated the importance of being able to track and monitor projects over time and for the performance information to be more transparent.  

Officers said if there was specific information that that Members weren’t able to track across from Quarter 4 to Quarter 1 they could look into this and bring the information back if Members requested it.