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Issue - meetings

2025/26 Quarterly Service Review Q2

 

 

Meeting: 17/12/2025 - Executive (Item 436)

436 Quarterly Service Review Q2 pdf icon PDF 97 KB

Purpose:

To provide details of the Council’s operational performance at the end of 2025-26 Quarter Two (Q2).

 

Recommendation:

That the Executive Resolves to:

1.    Note the 2025/26 Q2 service performance report.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Andy Graham, Leader of the Council, introduced the item, the purpose of which was to provide details of the Council’s operational performance at the end of 2025-26 Quarter Two (Q2).

 

In his presentation Councillor Graham made the following points:

 

  • The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) had been adopted by the Council in October and would take effect from 31 January 2026.
  • The Executive on Tour event held in Carterton, including an engagement session on the Carterton Area Strategy, had been attended by at least thirty-five people and the discussions at the session had been very successful.
  • The Council had been the first district council in Oxfordshire to endorse the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS).
  • Service performance areas above target included: percentage of Council Tax collected; percentage of Non-Domestic Rates collected; processing times for Council Tax support new claims; Customer satisfaction and Building Control satisfaction among others.
  • Areas of performance below target included: processing times for Council Tax support change events and Housing Benefit change of circumstances and percentage of official Land Charge searches completed within ten days. The explanation for the performance and subsequent remedial action in these areas was given by the Officer present and could be seen in the report at section 3.3.

 

Councillor Geoff Saul, Executive Member for Housing and Social Care, noted that the numbers of people in temporary housing had steadied and the increase of stock of housing owned by the Council going forward would assist this further.

 

Councillor Graham proposed accepting the recommendations of the report.

 

Councillor Duncan Enright, Deputy Leader of the Council, seconded the proposal.

 

This was voted on and approved unanimously.

 

RESOLVED:

that the Executive:

1.    Noted the 2025/26 Q2 service performance report.

Meeting: 10/12/2025 - Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Item 70)

70 2025/26 Quarterly Service Review Q2 pdf icon PDF 97 KB

Purpose

Pre-decision scrutiny of an Executive report detailing the service performance of the Council in the second quarter of 2025/26.

 

Recommendation

That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee resolves to:

1.         Note the report and agree any recommendations it wishes to submit to the Executive.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Andy Graham, Leader of the Council, introduced the report and highlighted that:

  • Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) charging would take effect from 31 January 2026.
  • Witney and Chipping Norton markets had transferred to a new operator in August which had made a positive difference.
  • The Council had endorsed the Oxfordshire Nature Recovery Strategy.
  • Progress had been made on decarbonising the Windrush Leisure Centre in Witney.
  • Missed bin collections were well within target.
  • Gym memberships were above targets, as were visits to leisure centres, helped by improvements and new marketing strategies.
  • The processing times for Council Tax Support and Housing Benefit changes had improved but remained below target. £250k had been secured in unclaimed benefits for residents.
  • A staff absence in September had impacted Land Charges performance but performance was now improving.

 

The Committee asked questions and noted that:

  • While the Council was not meeting its own targets for appeal decisions, it was within the government targets for both major and minor applications.
  • The housing benefit target was under review due to the complexity of the cases and the fact that timescales were measured from the initial contact rather than the required information being received.
  • Fly tipping enforcement performance of 0.33% was expected to improve.
  • To date this year no officer recommendations that had been overturned by planning sub-committees had been lost on appeal. Appeal decisions were regularly reported to the planning sub-committees. A breakdown could be provided in future reports.
  • Garden waste generally accounted for c. 40-45% of all recycling but volumes of green waste had dropped nationally due to the dry summer, affecting the overall recycling rate. The Council continued to perform comparatively very well at recycling.
  • Officers were working on benchmarking the leisure service against other Greenwich Leisure Ltd. (GLL) contracts or GLL national figures. Questions were also raised about the reliability of footfall trends given a perceived lack of access controls at facilities.
  • There was a need for clear measurable key performance indicators to underpin the Biodiversity Action Plan.
  • A complaint that had been upheld by the Local Government Ombudsman had been reported to the Audit and Governance Committee.

 

The Committee commended the overall positive performance that was presented in the report and requested that future reports include a break down of appeal decisions and more information about disabled facilities grants and fly tipping, in particular the impact of the new bookings system at waste and recycling centres on instances of fly tipping.

 

The Committee requested an update on why the Chipping Norton Leisure Centre decarbonisation project was not being progressed.

 

The Chair thanked the Leader and officers for their report and attendance.

 

 

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