The Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee has decided to approve recommendations for monitoring the Council's Sustainability Environment Key Performance Indicators.

URL: https://democracy.hyndburnbc.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=161

Decision Maker: Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Outcome: Recommendations Approved

Is Key Decision?: No

Is Callable In?: No

Purpose:

Content: The Policy Manager submitted a report to provide a performance update on the Council’s Sustainability Environment Key Performance Indicators as part of the Council’s performance monitoring review.    He reported that the Corporate Performance Review held in 2024 had recommended that the Council monitored its performance progress.  Subsequently, a performance review report had been submitted to the Resource Overview & Scrutiny Committee held in January 2025, at which the Committee had recommended that future Performance Review reports should only focus on elements of performance.Subsequently, the theme of this report was Sustainability (Environment).  This covered recycling rates, household waste, fly tipping, housing repair, vacant dwellings, carbon emissions, Green Flags and air pollution.     The Policy Manager referred to appendix 1 of the report which listed the Sustainability theme’s KPIs (eight indicators) and compared performance over the past 5 years, benchmarking and providing Service Manager commentary.  He explained that of the eight indicators, three had seen an improvement in their direction of travel, four had stayed the same and one had seen a downturn compare with previous years.  The three indicators that had seen an improvement in performance were: the number of fly tipping incidents, the number of complaints of housing disrepair and the number of Green Flag parks held.  The indicator that had slightly dropped was the household recycling rate.  This had seen a slight drop from 32.2% to 31.6% although this was still below the Lancashire average of 39%.  The Committee was informed that this figure included garden waste and would be affected by each borough’s housing stock and garden type.  In a positive light, Hyndburn did have the highest rates of dry recycling across Lancashireand residual household waste which had remained significantly below the Lancashire average.    The Committee had submitted a number of questions, in advance to the meeting, which had been responded to and referred to the following issues:    ·         Fly tipping could be effected by volume as well as the number of incidents – could this be included in performance monitoring?  ·         Fly tipping of mattresses was a problem, was a delay in collecting bulky waste a contributory factor to this?  ·         Was there data on the fly tipping of bulky waste?  ·         Could data on ‘housing standards disrepair’ be broken down into further categories?  ·         Why do the performance indicator rates show garden waste and residual household waste to be comparably worse than neighbouring authorities?    Committee Members also asked additional questions at the meeting as follows:    ·         Is there anything that can be done to target air pollution, particularly pollution from traffic in the Clayton Triangle area.   ·         With reference to Household Waste Recycling rates, could the Council do more to educate residents to boost rates of recycling.  ·         People did not want to pay for disposing of their waste so this often led to fly tipping.  Was the problem of fly tipping worse on private land?  Could data be provided?  ·         Could an improved bulky waste disposal service and better advertisement of the service help to reduce rates of fly tipping?  ·         Did the abolition of the selective landlord licensing scheme have an impact on the number of housing disrepair complaints?  ·         Conversion of properties into HMOs was now common and many were of an age where improvements would be required.  ·       Were any of the Green Flag parks in danger of losing the qualification?  ·         Was there any further information relating to the number of damp, mould housing disrepair complaints.    The Policy Manager reported that the Council was only responsible for monitoring certain pollutants and that he was able to provide a summary of which pollutants the Council monitored and which they didn’t.     In respect of housing disrepair complaints numbers were down on previous year’s figures, which was partly due to the milder weather conditions experienced in winter 24/25.   He pointed out that Hyndburn had a large number of terraced properties which required heating and ventilation or would fall into poor condition.  He reported that the causes of complaint could be broken down into different categories and that this information could be shared with Councillors.   He referred to the Council’s carbon footprint and informed the Committee that the Council had been able to move towards it’s net zero target but this had started to plateau in recent years.  He pointed out that to make any further significance it would require funding.  Should funding not be made available then a process of working on offsetting emissions would be required along with a promotion campaign to encourage residents to participate in reducing emissions by making small changes themselves.   Green flags in parks had made significant progress in recent years with 11 parks holding the award.   The Policy Manager explained that the recycling figures for Hyndburn were good and that the low rate of residual household waste showed that residents were recycling.  He pointed out that this performance data was often misinterpreted.  He informed the Committee that Officers had not considered there to be a problem with mattresses being fly tipped.   A Member reported that data showing the number of incidents of fly tipping and issues around bulky waste disposal (e.g. mattresses) may not always be accurate as the Council often told residents to leave reported waste for later collection, sometimes weeks later.   It was considered that this along with other issues such as narrow back alleys could have contributed to inaccurate or misinterpreted performance monitoring figures.    The Policy Manager reported that he would refer back any concerns/comments raised at the meeting to the relevant Officers.   Resolved                                  (1)  That the report be noted; and                                            (2) That the Policy Manager reports back to the   relevant Officers on issues raised by the Committee.    

Date of Decision: July 23, 2025