The Committee was informed that, in October 2023, the Council formally adopted its Corporate Plan for 2023-27. The plan established the authority’s ambition for the Borough, complete with a suite of corporate objectives and supporting policy commitments that will shape the Council’s activities over the four-year administrative period. In order to evaluate if the Council was effectively achieving against its stated policy commitments, and was ultimately delivering consistently high-quality services, a sound performance management process was implemented. Developed by Senior Council Officers and Cabinet Portfolio Holders, the Council’s Corporate Plan introduced a Performance Management Framework (PMF) that formed the basis of reporting corporate performance to Members and residents.

The Committee was therefore presented with an update against the PMF, in relation to those performance measures that fall within the remit of the Operational Services Cabinet Committee for Quarter Three 2023-24 (October to December 2023).

The Assistant Director (Operations) and Head of Community Protection provided the Committee with an overview of each of the performance measures and responded to the questions/comments raised by Members.

It was highlighted that the report/measures did not include previous figures for comparison purposes and that this would have been helpful to Members. The Assistant Director (Operations) advised that it was due to it being a new suite of performance measures, therefore, some measures would not have background/historic data. The Assistant Director (Operations) advised that he would raise this outside of the meeting.

The Committee requested an updated on the following:-

·         The phased introduction and enhancement of recycling provision at flats and, following the potential introduction of glass recycling, what will the impact be on the Council i.e. will the Council require new freighters, when will roadside glass collections be introduced and will the communal recycling sites/bottle banks be closed as they can look unsightly.

The Assistant Director (Operations) advised that, in October 2023, the Government announced ‘Simpler Recycling’ to enable people across England to be able to recycle the same materials, whether at home or work.  The reforms, including weekly collections of food waste, will be introduced for all households across England by March 2026. Council’s will need to collect dry recyclables including glass bottles and jars. Therefore, officers were currently working on an action plan to deliver the new recycling requirements, alongside re-balancing the collection rounds to make them as efficient as possible; this will include the introduction and enhancement of recycling provision at flats however the Council was waiting to see whether the Council would receive new burdens funding to help implement this provision. The Assistant Director (Operations) advised that the intention will be to provide Members with the proposed action plan at a future meeting of the Committee.

In terms of glass recycling, technology had evolved so the Council should be able to introduce this provision as glass can now be extracted for re-melt from dry recycling. The intention will be to introduce roadside glass collections hopefully within this calendar year however this will be detailed within the action plan. With regard to the future of communal recycling sites/bottle banks, it had not yet been decided what will happen following the introduction of glass recycling. 

·         The Committee also requested that further publicity be undertaken on how the public can report fly-tipping and commended the work of the Street Champions; it was felt that all Members should be encouraged to sign-up as Street Champions.

The Assistant Director (Operations) advised that he would liaise with the Council’s Communication Team regarding further publicity of how the public can report fly-tipping.

·         In terms of unpaid work opportunities, the Committee asked whether this was being explored.

The Assistant Director (Operations) advised that officers continued to work alongside the local Community Payback and exploratory work was also being undertaken with Kent Police to provide litter picking tasks as unpaid work opportunities for offenders issued with Conditional Cautions in place of prosecution in court.

The Assistant Director (Operations) informed the Committee that the Council was also hoping to apply for and achieve a Green Flag Award for Gravesend Cemetery.

The Committee noted the report.