An apology for absence was received from Samir Jassal and Cllr Elizabeth Mulheran; Cllr Jordan Meade and Cllr John Caller attended as their respective substitutes.

The minutes of the meeting held on 9 February 2022 were signed by the Chair.

No declarations of interest were made.

The Head of Internal Audit & Counter Fraud Shared Service presented Members of the Performance and Administration Committee with an update against the Performance Management Framework, as introduced within the council’s Corporate Plan, for Quarter Three 2021-22 (October to December 2021).

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The Head of Internal Audit & Counter Fraud Shared Service highlighted the following:<AI5>

PI 23 - Average processing time taken for Housing Benefit claims (days) and PI 24 Average processing time for changes of circumstance in Housing Benefit claims (days)

·       Housing Benefit performance figures have been affected but performance still remains above the national and local averages. The service remains under enormous pressure as on top of the day job, it has had to assess and pay:

-        Test and Trace Isolation Payments (ended 24 February although residents have 42 days to apply). £593,500 has been paid to 1193 residents

-        Awarded Covid 19 Additional Relief Fund to 270 businesses totalling £1,315,695

-        Assessing applications for Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Fund monies (fund £660,707) (scheme closed 18/3/22 and will pay by 31/3/22)

·       The Council now have to identify and pay £150 Council Tax Rebate (Energy Bills payment) going to all eligible Band A-D properties by 30 September 2022 and devise a discretionary scheme (has to be paid by 30 November 2022) for those not eligible in standard scheme (i.e., Bands E-H plus those not eligible in bands A-D). This is a massive task and it is estimated that we will have to pay approx. 37,000 households with funding of £5.546m.

·       Household Support Fund –100 households have been identified via the LIFT product as being deemed to be in Financial Crisis and Fuel Poverty. Looking to spend £32,000 allocated to the service as part of the Household Support Fund.

·       The LIFT campaign has seen the service bring in an additional £239,705 for the residents of Gravesham during the financial year 

PI 26 - Total number of reported corporate complaints

·       In Q2 the council updated its corporate complaints procedure, with the number of stages involved in the process reducing from three to two.

o   Stage One complaints are responded to by Service Managers.

o   Stage Two Complaints are responded to by the Director of the particular service to review the action taken in Stage One.

o   There is no longer a Stage Three (Chief Executive) response.

o   Stage One complaints continue to be replied to within 10 working days from the date of acknowledgement, with Stage Two responses replied to within 20 days from the date of acknowledgement.

·       During Q3 there were 43 complaints compared to 79 in Q2 and 77% of complaints in the period were closed inside timescale.

The largest proportion of the complaints during this quarter were for Housing DSO Building Management and related to delays in repairs and perceived poor repairs. However; to put this into context, 19,237 jobs were completed up to the end of February 2022 and there were 42 complaints about repairs and maintenance in the same period, meaning that 0.21% of customers have  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30.