The overall performance of Bradford Council services was better last year amid financial cuts and major changes at the authority, but 35 per cent of targets are still not being hit.

Details outlined in the authority’s corporate performance review for 2011/12 indicate that out of 54 reportable indicators, 35 of them, or 65 per cent, were on target as of the end of March. This proportion is an improvement on the result for the same tests the previous year, when only 63 per cent met their target.

In addition, the report shows that 62 per cent of the indicators have actually improved their performance over the year, in areas such as vulnerable people achieving independent living, initial assessments for children’s social care, collecting council tax and reducing household waste. Results on a further 16 corporate indicators will be provided later in the year as the required data is provided or needs to be validated.

A new, more streamlined set of corporate indicators is expected to be approved next Friday at a meeting of the executive, which has been developed to “better meet the Council’s priorities and improvement requirements going forward”. This will see the number of checks reduced to 47.

Key achievements include:

  • the percentage of initial assessments for children’s social care being carried out within ten working days of referral was 86 per cent, which is exceeding the target by approximately 410 children;
  • the percentage of vulnerable people achieving independent living, which saw 84 per cent, up on the 75 per cent from the previous year;
  • eight per cent of looked-after children had three or more placement moves during the year, an improvement on the 9.8 per cent of the previous year;
  • the average amount of residual waste per household has dropped in the last two years from 713 kg to 583kg against a challenging target of 590kg; t
  • he percentage of Council tax collected improved from 93.6 per cent in 2009/10 to 95.2 per cent last year as a result of changes introduced;
  • the processing of minor planning applications, with the proportion dealt with within eight weeks up from 75 per cent in 2010/11 to 84 per cent in the last financial year.

Targets that were missed include:

  • sickness absence, where the estimated final figure for the year is expected to be better than last time, but not to hit the challenging target of more than nine days overall;
  • children achieving level 4 or above in both English and Maths at Key Stage 2, and young people achieving five or more A* to C grade at GCSE including English and Maths, which were missed by seven and 2.5 percentage points respectively;
  • to create an additional 900 new homes in the district, which was missed, with only 736 completed within the last year.

The report will be discussed by the Council’s corporate overview and scrutiny committee at its meeting on Tuesday, June 19, in City Hall, from 6pm.