Frustration from councillors after performance targets missed

Dudley councillors expressed their frustration about a mixed bag of performance results for the first quarter of the financial year.

At a meeting of the authority’s Core Business Scrutiny Committee on September 23, a report on performance revealed the council missed six of its key targets, exceeded two and was within tolerance for another three.

Among the targets missed was how quickly the council answers questions under the Freedom of Information Act, which has a legal limit of 20 days.

The latest figures show only 50.7 percent of enquiries were answered on time by Dudley in April while the council’s target figure is 90 percent.

Cllr Quasim Mugal said: “I wouldn’t mind if this was the first time that this has been raised but it is now the third time time in this committee since I’ve been here and it’s getting worse.

“How many times will this committee hear ‘our demand is really high and we can’t cope’?

“At some point we have to say we are not doing what is our requirement and we need to put resources in there, I’m sick of hearing the same excuse.”

Another area where the authority fell short was answering calls to its Dudley Council Plus Service.

The volume of calls rose by 31 percent from the same period in the previous year to 123,741 of which 66 percent were answered, considerably less than the 85 percent target.

Officers blamed customer contact staff being directed to other duties due to high demand which was caused, in part, by the introduction of new waste collection services at a time of year recognised as a period of traditionally peak demand.

Cllr Phil Atkins said: “We get told the same stuff all the time, demand, not enough capacity, and can’t forecast it’s going to get really busy when we change the bin rollouts and when Christmas is coming it’s going to get a bit snowy – at some point it gets a bit ridiculous.

“I work in the NHS and can predict within ten patients how many patients are coming into ED every day so I find it astonishing, it’s just a bit farcical.”

The council also missed targets in sickness as a percentage of full time employee days, subject access request compliance, the percentage of corporate complaints getting a full response within ten working days and high priority audit recommendations being implemented ontime.

A report for the committee signed by Gurdeep SinghAulakh, associate director-technology, innovation, business intelligence and insight: core business, said: “While positive performance is being achieved in areas including income collection, council tax collection and ICT infrastructure availability, improvement is required in customer access, workforce wellbeing, statutory compliance and governance-related measures. 

“Management focus will continue addressing under performance and completing outstanding target-setting and reporting arrangements to support robust performance management throughout 2026/27.”