A belated report back, I'm afraid. Our first meeting in the Council House, in the Chamber - moved at quite short notice in time and space. This perhaps didn't help with the number of members of the public attending - which I think amounted to four (although from memory, I'm not sure they could be called civilians). From next time, we should also have live web streaming available to spread visibility (perhaps we should allow interaction by Twitter....)
The minutes are now available on the Council website. To be honest, this meeting was still about setting up the parameters for the operation of the new district structure. In particular, the performance monitoring framework is still being established and we'll start to see that bear fruit over the coming months, along with an increased district focus on housing. It was noted that we don't need a complex report - essentially we should move to a system of reporting by exception, so we should expect detail on areas that are not achieving against agreed targets. We've also got the ongoing consultation into the future model for tenant involvement in neighbourhood management.
We're now also getting much more up to date financial data - no longer will it be three months behind reality, the aim is to provide it up to the end of the last month (not even quarter). Also, we've now got the financial 'savings' allocated out to each service area, rather than being grouped under a single, rather incomprehensible heading. We're still facing significant 'pressures' in this year, largely down to delays in introducing new operating models for various services, which have been the subject of 'Rapid Service Reviews' that have thus far proved to be as rapid as a dead snail nailed to the floor.
The other key issue raised was the District Convention, to which key stakeholders across Yardley will be invited, on the 10 November 2012 at South Yardley Library. This will review performance and then help create a direction for the future of the district.
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