NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL
21 May 2025
STATEMENT OF EXECUTIVE MEMBER FOR CORPORATE SERVICES
LEGAL AND DEMOCRATIC SERVICES
Over March and April, Democratic Services have been taking part in a national government trial of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Minute product. ‘Minute’ enables notes and minutes of meetings to be initially drafted, based upon a recording of a meeting, by an AI tool and then edited following a series of defined instructions. A number of different templates are under development that will suit the needs of local government, and the early findings of the pilot are promising. There are 25 councils involved in this pilot to date. It is important to note that, whilst the AI tool can save time by undertaking an initial draft, a Democratic Services Officer will still be needed to edit, format and sense-check the draft.
Community Anchor Organisations
25 place-based organisations from across the county continue to work with the Localities and other service teams to progress a Community Anchor model for North Yorkshire. In addition, following research in the larger urban areas of Harrogate and Scarborough to help us identify the typologies of a Community Anchor model that will best serve those larger urban areas (town centres and their distinctive neighbourhoods) we have invited applications for two ‘Community Anchor Collectives’ – one each for Harrogate and Scarborough and discussions are ongoing with both areas.
Grants
The small grass roots ‘Inspire Grants’ scheme continues to attract significant interest, with 35 grants worth £32,954 awarded in the last quarter bringing the total to date this year to £139,309 supporting 146 projects. This is higher than last year when £130,074 had been awarded to 137 projects.
Community Partnerships
Established Partnerships following the pilot work: Easingwold, Uredale, Forest and Dale and We are Sherburn are developing and delivering priority projects that the partnerships have identified. Leyburn and Middleham Partnership (which has existed for a number of years) has spent some time exploring its function and has been reinvigorated and relaunched as Mid Wensleydale Community Partnership. Ten potential new partnerships are also being explored with member support.
Digital Inclusion
Quarter four saw £600,000 of the 2024/25 UK Shared Prosperity funded investment into digital inclusion reach its planned completion. The scheme developed a network of hubs across North Yorkshire creating 287 new digital champions supporting 2826 people. There is potential for this successful programme to be extended with SPF year four funding for a further year.
Reboot North Yorkshire (the Council digital devices re-use scheme) has provided 125 pieces of equipment to help people get connected, supporting individuals to improve social connectedness or to promote access to training and/or continue their education. The cross council steering group have also reviewed and redesigned a roadmap for the development of the scheme to maximise its potential.
Local Food Support
In Quarter four, place-based discussions continued with free or low-cost food providers in Scarborough and Harrogate to explore opportunities to create a network and work more collaboratively; this will continue in 2025/2026. The team also closed the Household Support Fund six Food Support Grants scheme, which awarded 27 grants to free or low-cost community food providers across the county to support their winter provision.
Cost of Living Communications Campaign
Led by Localities in conjunction with Communications, and Customer, Revenues and Benefits, NYC concluded the annual Cost-of-Living Communications campaign in Quarter four.
Work has now commenced to review the campaign, and to start planning for winter 2025/26. In the meantime, the reconfigured cost-of-living web page (www.northyorks.gov.uk/costofliving), will remain live, offering a one stop shop of information about a wide range of local schemes and organisations offering support.
PARISH LIAISON, LOCAL DEVOLUTION AND COMMUNITY RIGHTS
Parish Liaison
The work to develop Parish Liaison in 2024/25 included the establishment of a programme of area-based Parish Liaison drop-in sessions/meetings. These took place across North Yorkshire with the main Parish Liaison meetings supported by Democratic Services, Highways and Planning. They have been extremely well attended with representation, in person, from over 100 Parish Councils. In 2025/26 there will be a review of format and content, and a regular programme of further meetings will be organised commencing late summer 2025.
A regular update to all Parish Council started in August, this is now monthly and brings together all information relevant to Parish Councils from across NYC.
A single Parish Liaison contact e-mail address for Parish liaison and Democratic services was introduced in August that has been extremely successful with over 300 e-mail enquiries dealt with by the Parish Liaison Team.
Local Devolution
In 2024/25 the work to support and empower town and parish councils and community groups has focused on the double devolution pilot proposals. Progress has been dependent on the availability of information due to restructures and the capacity of Parish Councils to develop and submit full business cases.
Following detailed operational discussions, revised, and in some cases reduced, proposals have emerged with larger proposals including elements of asset transfers with smaller service-based proposals and double devolution proposals at varying stages of development.
There is one double devolution proposal due for agreement that will be reported by the Assistant Chief Executive – Local Engagement in June 2025. This will also include a review of all approved Expressions of Interest and recommendations for further devolution proposals.
MIGRANT PROGRAMMES
The team continues to align its support across the range of migrant programmes it delivers. Officers supporting delivery across all programmes (Resettlement, Asylum and Homes for Ukraine), ensuring a greater level of parity and a more consistent experience for new arrivals to North Yorkshire. This integrated team has led to positive change around access to mental health support, English language development opportunities and more flexibility in sourcing and allocating available accommodation.
During Quarter four the team also focussed on securing Lottery funding for the Swift programme, ready to launch in Quarter one 2025-26, with place-based voluntary sector partnerships now in place to collectively support identified needs in those communities.
Translation and Interpretation
Translation and Interpretation contracts are now managed by the Migrant Programmes Team; this includes British Sign Language.
Across the Council, use of the contracts has increased in the last 12 months. The total cost of the services in 2023/24 was £167,000, increasing to £208,000 in 2024/25. The cost is covered by the services that access it.
To improve internal processes, the team has created a training package to ensure all Council staff know how and when to access translation and interpretation services.
Working with the Transformation team, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) translation tool has been piloted, ready for imminent launch next financial year. Although it will not be possible to use this tool for all translations, it is anticipated that it will provide an overall saving against this element of the service.
Councillor Locality Budgets
No update.
Customer
Customer Service
Customer service has seen an increase in demand in quarter four by 45% compared to Quarter three. This was expected given that Quarter four is always the busiest quarter within customer services, this is a trend seen not only last year but also in the legacy areas. This increase in demand every quarter four is due to seasonal demands, like annual billing period falling within this quarter, Garden waste licences and household support funding falling within this period.
The top five demands for the customer service function in quarter four by service area are:
· Bins, Recycling and Waste
· Revenues (council tax)
· Social Care
· Housing and homelessness
· Roads, Parking and Travel
The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for telephone calls answered within four minutes in Quarter four of 2024/25 has shown a slight decline in performance across all three months compared to Quarter four of 2023/24 within the front-line teams. This reduction in performance can be attributed to Quarter four being the busiest period for customer services, coupled with several customer service staff transitioning to new internal opportunities, which has impacted our overall performance.
To mitigate this impact, the service-initiated recruitment efforts in Quarter three, with the intention of having new staff begin in Quarter four. However, the recruitment timelines and subsequent training requirements have posed challenges. Moving forward, we anticipate an improvement in performance as these new staff members become fully integrated and operational.
Performance by month for front line queues – % of calls answered in four minutes:
Month |
Q4 2024/25 % of calls answered in 4 mins |
Q4 2023/24 % of calls answered in 4 mins |
% Difference in 2024/25 to 2023/24 |
January |
83.09% |
90.40% |
-7.31% |
February |
84.22% |
85.50% |
-1.28% |
March |
78.31% |
80.33% |
-2.02% |
In addition to their regular business operations, the Customer Services team has undertaken several key initiatives in Quarter four:
· Household Support Fund (HSF) Phase six: Customer Services supported customers with initial inquiries regarding the HSF phase six.
· Revenues Service Assistance: The team assisted the Revenues service with the reminder cycle in January 2025 and the annual billing process in March 2025.
· Waste Service Support: Customer Services provided support to the waste service by answering calls from residents regarding garden green waste licensing renewals. From 31 January 2025 to 31 March 2025, the service received 14,056 calls and successfully handled 99.96% of them.
· Out-of-Hours Call Management: This quarter, Customer Services continued to enhance the consistency of handling out-of-hours calls through our 0300 number. New calls now managed through customer service out-of-hours include flooding, homelessness, and housing repairs.
Customer Excellence
The Council’s Customer Experience Programme aims to enhance the approach to customer experience across the council. This programme, along with our new customer experience strategy, will seeks to foster a culture of exceptional customer excellence throughout the Council, with a focus on improving the quality of customer interactions and overall service standards.
Our vision is to be “an organisation that places the customer at the heart of everything we do to continuously improve their experience.” It is essential that the responsibility for customer satisfaction is shared across the entire council, not just within customer service teams.
The programme has initiated cross-service outcome working groups that concentrate on our customer-first culture, customer insight (data and customer feedback), service design to meet customer needs, enhancing our digital and technological capabilities, and continuous improvement. These efforts aim to ensure that customer journeys are easy, accessible, consistent, responsive, respectful, and well-informed.
Household Support Fund (HSF)
The sixth phase of HSF was delivered across both quarters three and four. The Department for Work and Pensions funded programme aims to support those most in need or crisis with significantly rising living costs in 2024/25. In line with the expenditure guidelines and the agreed eligibility framework and delivery plan, 19,012 households across North Yorkshire were identified for a direct award in the form of a £150 shopping voucher to support them over the winter months. The direct award redemption ran from the 8 January 2025 - 13 February 2025, of which 94% of the eligible cohort redeemed their voucher. This encompassed families, pensioners and working age adult households.
In addition to this, supplementary funding was awarded to North Yorkshire Local Assistance Fund, the HSF Energy Support Scheme delivered by North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre, and 25 local free or low-cost food providers across the county. An HSF Exceptional Circumstances Fund was also delivered, to support those who may have missed out on support due to circumstances beyond their control. In total 51,472 households in North Yorkshire received support through the sixth phase of HSF.
HSF will continue for a seventh phase between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026; work is currently underway to develop the scheme, building on the learning from previous phases. It is to be noted the funding allocation for NYC is reduced by £800k on the previous year's funding.
North Yorkshire Local Assistance Fund saw a slight decrease in applications received in quarter 4 with 3,200, down from 3,299 in quarter three. Of the applications received 92% were approved. In keeping with previous quarters, the highest levels of demand are seen in Scarborough (40%), followed by Harrogate at 26%. The lowest levels of demand were in Richmondshire and Craven at 4% this quarter.
Building Control
During the past few weeks, the Building Control service has faced an unprecedented situation where, established, qualified and experienced surveyors have decided to leave North Yorkshire Council. The service is working with HR colleagues and engaging with staff to try and prevent further loss of staff. The staff that have decided to move on have all taken up opportunities within the private sector, either as consultants outside the building control sector or with private Registered Building Control Approvers. The service is facing a situation within a short period of time where it will have about 50% of its structure vacant.
The Building Control service has recently been through another recruitment campaign to fill the current vacant and future vacant posts. These are always difficult to fill posts but there’s been a limited interest in the Building Control Surveyor roles, with no interest in the Senior or Principal Building Control Surveyor posts.
From 1 January 2025 the service is required to collect Key Performance Indicator (KPI) data with the first return being due by the end of April in order for the service to demonstrate that it meets with the KPI’s. The KPI’s amount to approximately 35 individual measures coving the six separate areas of the Building Control function:
· Enforcement and Interventions
· Risk Management, Competence (expertise and knowledge)
· Systems and Controls
· Complaints handling and appeals
This is a national requirement and applies to both Local Authority Building Control Departments as well as Registered Building Control Approvers (Private section).
Development Management and Enforcement
From 1 April 2024 until 31 March 2025 the service has dealt with 162 major, 1,480 minor, 3,035 other and 17 County Matter applications. In addition, it has also dealt with a considerable number of other types of applications, including prior approvals, screening opinions, scoping reports, trees, hedgerows, discharge of conditions, telecommunications, etc.
Performance across all application types exceeds statutory national targets.
In terms of Planning Enforcement, from 1 April 2024 to the end of March 2025,1,588 cases have been closed.
Planning Operations
Work to progress the introduction of a single planning system (OneUniform) across the whole of North Yorkshire is continuing. An amendment to the timescale will see this introduced in phases from April 2025 until April 2026. In the meantime, we have introduced Windows 11 to priority users. Although this doesn’t allow comprehensive coverage for all to access the existing multiple systems, it has allowed us some flexibility to share resources in a more meaningful way and start to stand up teams aligned to the restructure.
COUNCILLOR HEATHER PHILLIPS