Council makes good progress on performance targets for 2014-15

An annual report of Corporate Performance is prepared each autumn, covering performance for the previous financial year.  An assessment of Council performance against the Corporate Plan and the Council’s Programme covers the period 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015. 

Good progress is reported with 94% of the commitments (130 out of the total 139) being either completed, on target or where performance is being maintained. For 8 commitments (6%), there is mixed performance and there is one commitment that has not been met.

Good progress is reflected across all seven themes of the programme. In addition to performance achievements, overall satisfaction with Council services during 2014/15 remains high at 83% reported by our Citizen’s Panel.

Chief Executive Steve Barron said: “Performance is good and in places very good with 94% of the commitments being met. This is good performance in any context. There are some areas for improvement and we will continue to focus efforts here and to monitor these.”

Convener of the Council, Isobel McCallum said: “It is pleasing to see such excellent progress and continuing good work across the Council.

“Performance will be measured against our new Programme and we will keenly monitor this over the coming months.”

A number of achievements are highlighted. During 2014/15 our Business Gateway supported 424 business start-ups and provided hundreds of businesses with advice, information or training. Progress in supporting large-scale employment opportunities has resulted in slightly reduced unemployment rates across the region.

The financial benefit to customers from advice services was £3.974m in 2014/15 compared to £1.634m the previous year. We also assisted 1330 customers with our money advice and welfare rights service.

We built 173 council houses in 2014/15 exceeding our target of 120.  We have now built 434 houses against our target to build 688 houses by March 2017. The completion of the River Ness Flood Scheme is also a major achievement.

Great progress has been made in relation to our on-line services, which have been increased to 23.9% compared to 9.4% the previous year.  

There was one commitment not met: For 2014/15 the proportion of our housing which met the standard was 85.2% compared to 70.1% the previous against a target of 100%. An additional number of properties have now been categorised as exempt on the basis of cost / technical difficulty. We are now expecting completion of the Scottish Housing Quality Standard programme in January 2016.