Appendix A
Introduction
Welcome to the Quarter 4 Performance Report for the period 1st January 2025 to 31st March 2025. This report also reflects on performance across the year.
The main report includes an executive summary highlighting areas going well and areas to be addressed. The report has been organised by the five Council Plan themes: Place and Environment, Economy, Health and Wellbeing, People and Organisation, to aid in the monitoring of the Council Plan.
Things to be addressed
Benefits Processing
In Quarter 4 there was an increase in the time taken to process new Housing Benefit and Council Tax reduction claims, compared to the previous quarter. The reduction in processing time can be linked to resource allocated to both the converging of the new Revenues and Benefits system, increase in applications due to the year-end process and vacancies in the service.
Telephone calls answered in 4 minutes
Telephone calls answered in 4 minutes has seen a decline in performance for all three months compared to Quarter 4 2023/24 in the front-line teams. The average time to answer a call in Quarter 4 was 2 minutes and 7 seconds compared to 1 minute 12 seconds in Quarter 3. This reduction in performance is due to this period being the busiest quarter in customer services combined with reduced staff availability whilst recruiting has impacted performance negatively. The service is still recruiting so performance will improve moving forward.
Organisation
Our Council Plan outlines the following ambitions:
- Good quality, value for money services that are customer focused and accessible to all
- A well-led and managed, financially sustainable and forward- thinking council
- A carbon neutral council
One council, where colleagues work together to achieve our ambitions and support each.
Central Services
Customer
Services
Customer Services has seen an increase in demand in Quarter 4 by 45% compared to Quarter 3. This was expected given that Quarter 4 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 4 is due to the annual billing period falling within this quarter and the Garden waste licences for the new season recommencing in this period.
The top five demands for the Customer Service function in Quarter 4 by service area are:
· Bins, Recycling and Waste
· Revenues
· Social Care
· Housing and homelessness
· Roads, Parking and Travel
The top five service areas have been consistent over the last five quarters, but the order changes slightly.
Bins, recycling and waste was the highest demanding service area, as this encompassed Garden Waste which reopened for buying a licence on Friday 31 January 2025.
Revenues had multiple factors which contributed to their high demand this quarter, these were:
· annual bills which were issued in March
· reminders which were issued in January
Revenues may have also experienced additional calls relating to second homes as the premiums for a second home were added to annual bills.
These call types for revenues not only drive demand but mean capacity in these areas changes due to the complexity of the queries leading to longer call durations and an impact on performance. Customer Service Centres at Craven, Hambleton, Richmondshire and Selby answer these calls at first point of contact.
Whilst Revenues were the top demanding service through the phone system, Customer Services do not answer all their calls at the front door, only the four areas stated above, hence why it is the second highest service. The Revenues call types are currently being reviewed to provide consistency when handling Revenues calls within Customer Services across the County.
Bins, recycling and waste had the highest demand into customer services this quarter, the order of the top five services is different to Quarter 4 of 2023/24, where Revenues was the top demanding service.
Customer Demand by Channel
Quarter 4 has seen overall customer demand increase compared to the same period in 2023/24, but not all channels have increased in demand compared to the same period.
|
Channel |
Quarter 4 2025/25 demand by channel |
Quarter 4 2023/24 demand by channel |
% difference in 2025/25 to 2023/24 |
|
Telephony |
165,857 |
173,609 |
-4.5% |
|
|
59,221[1] |
38,856 |
+52.4% |
|
Face to face |
19,282[2] |
18,940 |
+1.8% |
|
Contact us on-line enquiry |
15,531 |
13,145 |
+18.2% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total number of contacts[3] |
259,891 |
244,550 |
+6.3% |
Quarter
4
saw a
shift in overall channel demand compared to Quarter
4
of
2023/24, potentially indicating a change in customer behaviour to
online. Face to face remained fairly consistent compared to the
same period last year, whereas email and contact us proportion of
demand has increased, and telephony demand has declined. This rise
in demand for contact us also occurred in Quarter
2
and
Quarter
3
compared
to the same period last year. In Quarter
4
2024/25,
telephony accounted for 63.8% of overall demand, this is 7.2% lower
than Quarter
4
of
2023/24.
As shown in the table above, the telephone interaction was the
highest contact type in Quarter
4
at
165,857, followed by online at 74,752 (email and contact us forms)
and then face to face at 19,282. Telephony accounted for 63.8% of
demand this quarter, which is 5% lower than Quarter
3.
Face to face accounted for 7.4%, a decline of 2.4%, and the online channel accounted for 28.8% of demand, an increase of 7.4%. The increase in online can be linked to additional contact us communications especially around bins, recycling and waste, the email data has increased due to the addition of social care emails. Even though footfall demand accounted for a smaller proportion of overall demand compared to Quarter 3, the footfall demand increased in volume. This increase can be linked to garden waste and household support fund footfall
Telephone calls answered in 4 minutes
The telephone calls answered in 4 minutes (KPI) in Quarter 4 2024/25 has seen a decline in telephone performance for all three months compared to Quarter 4 2023/24 in the front-line teams. The average time to answer a call in Quarter 4 was 2 minutes and 7 seconds compared to 1 minute 12 seconds in Quarter 3. This reduction in performance is due to this period being the busiest quarter in customer services combined with reduced staff availability whilst recruiting has impacted performance negatively. The service tried to mitigate this impact by recruiting staff in Quarter 3 to begin in Quarter 4 but unfortunately due to some staff moving to new internal opportunities, staffing was down. The service is still recruiting so performance should improve moving forward.
Performance by month for front line queues – % of calls answered in 4 minutes
|
Month |
Quarter 4 2024/25 % of calls answered in 4 mins |
Quarter 4 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 Quarter 4 2024/25 demand for social care has declined compared to the same period in the previous year. Performance in social care has improved compared to Quarter 4 2023/24 due to fewer repeat calls. There has been a shift in channel from telephone to email, in 2023/24 phone accounted for 57.8% of demand in Quarter 4 of 2023/24, whereas in 2024/25 this is 53.5% of demand. This shift also occurred in Quarters 2 and 3, potentially indicating a change in social care customers behaviours which could be linked to the work customer services and social have undertaken to move professional to online channels.
|
|
Q4 2024/25 Social Care Demand |
Q4 2023/24 Social Care Demand |
% Difference in 2024/25 to 2023/24 |
|
Call demand |
19,090 |
23,180 |
-17.64% |
|
Email demand |
16,563 |
16,906 |
-2.03% |
|
Total demand |
35,653 |
40,086 |
-11.06% |
On-line Demand
The service is working to develop the online offer for customers. Through the customer ‘one front door’ we can see the volume of customer traffic across all our on-line tools. We work to ensure services are accessible to customers through the contact channel of their choice, whilst promoting and developing online services so this becomes their first choice.
There were 4,890,629 page views across the corporate website in Quarter 4. While this was an increase of 32% on Quarter 3 when we had 3,700,932 views, it is almost identical to the 4,813,772 views in Quarter 4 the previous year.
|
Quarter 4 2024/25 – top 10 webpage views |
% difference to Quarter 3 2024/25 |
Quarter 3 2024/25 – top 10 webpage views |
||
|
Bin collection calendar
|
344,187 |
+15% |
Bin collection calendar |
299,118 |
|
Location checker |
267,797 |
+24% |
Check your bin collection day (look-up) |
227,255 |
|
Check your bin collection day (look-up) |
253,290 |
+11% |
Location checker |
215,132 |
|
Check your bin or recycling collection day |
226,597 |
+16% |
Check your bin or recycling collection day |
195,435 |
|
Road cameras and weather conditions |
149,214 |
+33% |
Road cameras and weather conditions |
100,288 |
|
Garden waste collection service |
127,652 |
+473% |
View and comment on planning applications |
64,243 |
|
Bins, Recycling and Waste
|
96,131 |
+59% |
Job search |
61,412 |
|
School terms and holiday dates |
90,332 |
+69% |
View and comment planning in your area |
61,033 |
|
Contact us
|
83,312 |
+43% |
Bins, Recycling and Waste |
60,317 |
|
Council Tax
|
80,951 |
+38% |
Jobs and careers |
59,042 |
The increase in webpage views from Quarter 3 to Quarter 4 was a result of several factors;
· Quarter 4 typically coincides with the worst weather for the county and January saw major impacts with snow causing disruption across a number of services, especially bin collections. While bin pages are always among the most popular, all of the pages saw significant increases as people looked for the latest information. The disruption also accounted for the increase in page views for the location checker, road cameras and weather conditions and contact us.
· The launch of the garden waste service subscriptions.
· Revenues annual billing, bringing council tax into the top 10 webpage views.
·
Parents
traditionally check for the year ahead when pupils return after
Christmas, bringing the school terms and holiday dates into the top
10, webpages.
When considering website performance, we need to be aware that there is likely another 20% of page views we are unable to track due to customers refusing cookie permissions. Also, that we are not expecting to see provable growth on the website as a whole at the moment[4]
Revenues
In Quarter 4 the Customer Services Team have assisted the Revenues service with a reminder cycle in January 2025 and annual billing in March 2025. Whilst these are both business-as-usual communication within the service, the customer services teams in the former localities of Craven, Hambleton, Richmondshire and Selby answer these calls at first point of contact, therefore the impact of these communications can be seen specifically in these areas within the call volume figures for January and March. For these four areas from the week commencing 10 March to 31 March, 6,300 calls have been relating to Revenues. These areas have handled these additional calls well, however performance in these areas for March was impacted due to both the demand and the complexity of the queries leading to longer call durations.
Garden Waste
Garden Waste licences launched to residents on Friday 31 January 2025. Customer Services provided support to the waste service to answer calls from residents for their subscriptions. The service has received 14,056 calls and handled 99.96% of these calls from 31 January 2025 to 31 March 2025. The service allocated new starters in January to answer the Garden Waste and Household Support Fund demand to prevent the impact of this demand in the former locality areas. The queue also had the added support of advisors from former areas, meaning all staff could handle these calls at first point of contact, and subsequently performance was high for this call type. This was the first year that the service was harmonised across all former areas. Over the same period last year, we received 14,801 calls for garden green waste, it should also be noted that the scheme opened a week earlier last year, so call volumes are consistent each year.
Household Support Fund (HSF)
Customer Services answered calls for the HSF alongside the Welfare and Benefits Service. Customer Services supported customers with initial queries and redemption calls. Overall, 1,900 calls were received that related to HSF in Quarter 4 of which 99.8% were handled. Customer Services handled 95% of these calls.
Out of Hours Calls
This quarter Customer Services have continued to take flooding calls and homelessness calls through the 0300 number out of hours. In Quarter 4 out of hours housing repairs calls began routing through the 0300 number from Monday 27 January 2025, from the 3 March 2025 homelessness Scarborough calls also began routing through the 0300 number. Customer Services have received 382 homelessness calls, 109 flooding calls and 637 housing repair calls this quarter. These calls are in addition to the social care out of hours calls that are taken by the same advisors.
Weather
Over the weekend of the 4 January 2025 a weather warning was issued across the county. In the week commencing 6 January 2025 bad weather covered the area, with snow and ice alongside cold temperatures. This resulted in interrupted bin rounds as roads were too difficult to reach residents' properties. Subsequently call volumes in former areas were high, especially around missed bin and bin query calls. Due to the snow and ice experienced over the weekend and throughout the week the demand for County Hall services, such as gritting, significantly increased. The impact of the bad weather continued into the week commencing 13 January 2025.
Friday 14 January 2025 saw a rise in calls due to the strong winds of storm Eowyn, these calls are seen in the County Hall Front line team especially. This is the highest call volume for a Friday for County Hall since the 20 October 2023 which saw the impact of heavy rain in Storm Babet. Storm Herminia also occurred over Sunday 26 January and Monday 27 January.
Revenue and Benefits
Revenues
The collection of Council Tax and Business Rates for NYC has a major part to play in the overall financial stability of the Council.
The table below provide a comparison of Council Tax and Business Rates Quarter 4 collection data for 2024/25 and 2023/24.
|
|
2024/25 |
2023/24 |
Change |
2024/25 collected |
2023/24 collected |
Change |
|
Council Tax
|
97.56% |
97.87% |
Down 0.37% |
£553,564,066 |
£521,602,816 |
£31,961,250 |
|
Business Rates |
97.93% |
97.85% |
Up 0.08% |
£209,468,299 |
£195,567,481 |
£13,900,818 |
Council Tax
The annual Council Tax liability to be collected for 2024/25 was £567,395,920. In Quarter 4 the Council Tax collection rate concluded at 97.56%. This equates to a total amount still to be collected of £13,831,854 for 2024/25 at the end of the financial year. The council tax outstanding value has increased slightly compared to Quarter 4 of the previous financial year, which equated to £11,360,343 outstanding for the 2023/24 financial year. The collection rate recorded at the end of Quarter 4 for the year of 2023/24 was 97.87%. The council tax rate outstanding may have increased compared to the same period last year, but the value of liability has also increased, therefore it would be expected the outstanding liability would be higher. The overall collection rate is similar for the same period, and the last two financial years have concluded at a similar collection rate. This year, the number of residents paying over a 12-month period has increased compared to last year, potentially a continuation of the cost-of-living impact. Therefore, the only true comparison in collection rate could be drawn in Quarter 4 as collection income had been spread further over the twelve months, with this year concluding on a similar collection rate. The service aimed to complete all reminder cycles this year in anticipation of converging to a new Revenues and Benefits system in Quarter 3. Due to the complexity of converging the seven systems into one, the supplier and Council had to extend the implementation date, while they worked through system issues. This extension however meant that our request to the council for additional court dates couldn't be rescheduled due to court availability.
Business
Rates
The annual Business Rate liability to be collected for 2024/25 is £213,903,994. In Quarter 4 the Business Rate collection rate concluded at 97.93%. This equates to a total amount still to be collected of £4,435,695 for 2024/25 at the end of the financial year. This is slightly higher than the Quarter 4 amount still to be collected in 2023/24 which was £4,299,821. The 2023/24 business rate collection rate was 97.85%, therefore overall collection of business rates improved compared to last year. Similar to Council Tax, the liability outstanding may have increased compared to the same period last year, but the value of liability has also increased, therefore it would be expected the outstanding liability would be higher.
Following the restructure of the revenues service there remained a significant number of vacancies for which the service received a high level of interest and new team members joined the service in January 2025. Whilst not every vacancy has yet been filled there will now be an intensive period of training, and this additional resource coupled with the benefits that the one revenues system will bring in summer 2025 together provide a platform to improve collection rates and performance going forward.
Benefits
Housing Benefit
In Quarter 4 the average time to process Housing Benefit new claims was 26.06 days, this is a reduction on the Quarter 3 performance of 19.43 days. The reduction in processing speed can be linked to resource allocated to both the converging of the new Revenues and Benefits system and the annual year end process, this is in addition to vacancies in the service, which the services is now out to recruit. An improvement in performance has occurred from Quarter 3 for the average time to process Housing Benefit change of circumstances, in Quarter 4 the average processing time was 2.78 days, an improvement to the Quarter 3 average of 3.68 days. The change of circumstances average for Housing Benefit is skewed in Quarter 4 due to the service being notified of annual rent and benefit uprating changes for the new financial year, subsequently, the Quarter 1 2025/26 average may be impacted. This improvement may also be a result of procedures being aligned across the service. The service’s speed of processing Housing Benefit claims is below the Quarter 4 2023/24 DWP national performance of 19 days for new claims but is quicker than the 3 days for change of circumstances.
Performance in Quarter 1 2025/26 may not provide a true reflection of the service provided to residents as the new Revenues and Benefits system converges to be live at the end of Quarter 1, it is hoped that the new system will subsequently improve performance for the remainder of the year.
Council Tax Reduction (CTR)
In Quarter 4, the average time to process CTR new claims was 28.90 days, a decline of 10.37 days compared to the Quarter 3 average of 18.53 days. The average time to process CTR change of circumstances has also declined slightly from 2.69 days in Quarter 3 to 3.35 days in Quarter 4. This decline again can be linked to resource allocated to both the converging of the new Revenues and Benefits system and the annual year end process. The service continues to ensure claims are processed quickly despite the increased national roll out of the migration of legacy benefits to Universal Credit which prevents a new claim being processed in less than 30 days for all working age claims.
Human Resources
Sickness Absence
Excluding schools, the Quarter 4 days lost per FTE is slightly down on QQuarter24/25 (2.58), and on Quarter 4 23/24 (2.84). Including schools the Quarter 4 full workforce figure (2.34) is down on Quarter 3 24/25 (2.56) and on Quarter 4 23/24 (2.64). The full year sickness absence for 24/25 is 10.01 days per FTE, a decrease on the full year figure of 12.52 in 23/24. In the context of nationally reported extremely high infection rates these figures, and the decreasing rolling annual figure, are a positive indicator that interventions to reduce sickness absence are achieving success.
Turnover
Q4
turnover (289 leavers, 2.74%), is a decrease on Q3 24/25 (304
leavers, 2.93%). The rolling full year turnover rate 12.1%, a very
slight increase on 12% in 23-24.
Agency Spend
Total agency spend Quarter 4 24/25 was £1,687,521, a decrease of £196,095 on Quarter 3 24/25 (£1,883,616). Compared to Quarter 4 23/24 (£1,499,822) there has been an increase of £187,699. Children and Young People’s Service (CYPS) account for 66% of the overall spend on agency staff, including a high-cost agency spend for an emergency child placement. Spend on Education Psychologists (EP) continues to be high due to the increased demand for assessments and national shortage of professionals in this field. An increase in direct appointments; trainee and assistant EPs and EPs recruited from abroad is contributing to an increase in capacity within the service which should result in a reduction in the use of agency workers/locum EPs.
Focussed work continues with CYPS senior leadership team to ensure that the safeguarding and compliance risk and the higher costs of engagement of agency staff are managed in the future.
Within Community Development spend has decreased by £136,847 from Quarter 3 24/25 (£395,376) to Quarter 4 24/25 (£258,529). Planning have reduced the number of agency workers from around 20 workers. The 2 that remain have been extended into Quarter 1 25/26. Planning have successfully appointed to most of their vacancies post restructure and recruitment will continue to ensure fully staffed teams. There is an urgent need to focus on growing our own planning talent at entry level.
Apprenticeship Update
The government continue to make several announcements of changes to the apprenticeship system designed to cut red tape and boost growth. The changes announced so far are:
- Removal of the requirement to undertake English and Maths functional skills for those over 19 years old and over – becomes an employer decision
- Shorter apprenticeships
- Introduction of foundation apprenticeships
- Apprenticeship assessment principles
- Payments simplification for providers
Most changes will be introduced over the next few months, except for changes to English and Maths which took effect immediately for both existing and new apprentices. Most existing NYC apprentices already held relevant English and maths qualifications so no impact. Moving forward, each service area will decide whether new apprentices should complete Maths and English if they don’t hold them already. Most of the service areas have confirmed that they will continue to require English and Maths to remain a part of the apprenticeship programme.
Government have also announced their intention to remove the ability for employers to use the levy to fund Level 7 apprenticeship programmes. Although this is not formally confirmed yet, this would cause issues in certain professional areas such as Planning and impact our ability to develop careers into senior roles. Professional bodies are lobbying government to retain this funding.
Introduction
RAG – An indication of the level of performance an indicator is currently achieving in relation to a set target or national benchmarking level for that indicator. While the RAG rating is linked to the two “Improvement since last” markers, it is a standalone measure, measured by performance to either the target or benchmarking.
“Improvement since last” – Current direction of travel when compared to the last annual or quarterly figures. This is a measure of how the indicator is moving over two periods – Annual and Quarterly.
Key:
|
|
Direction of travel is positive compared to the year-end or last quarter figures |
|
Direction of travel is negative compared to the year-end or last quarter figures |
|
|
Performance is static to last year’s outturn or last quarter’s figures |
N/A |
Data either at a yearly or quarterly level not available |
Organisation
· Good quality, value for money services that are customer focused and accessible to all
· A carbon neutral council
· A well-led and managed, financially sustainable, and forward-thinking council
· A diverse and inclusive council, where employees are supported and valued
|
Primary indicators |
Latest
data/ |
RAG |
Bench-marking data |
Comments |
Improvement since last: |
|
|
Quarter |
Year |
|||||
|
RE1 % Council Tax collected |
Q4.97.56% |
|
Q4 2023/24 97.87%
|
The annual Council Tax liability to be collected for 2024/25 is £567,395,920. In Q4 the collection rate concluded at 97.56% - equating to £13,831,854 still to be collected at the end of the financial year - this is a slight increase compared to Q4 2023/24, when £11,360,343 was outstanding. The value of the liability for 2024/25 has increased compared to 2023/24 and therefore it would be expected the outstanding liability would be higher. RAG rated green. |
N/A |
|
|
RE2 % Non- domestic rate collected |
Q4 97.93% |
|
Q4
2023/24 |
The
annual Business Rate liability to be collected for 2024/25 is
£213,903,994. In Q4 the collection rate concluded at 97.93% -
equating to £4,435,695 still to be collected at the end of
the financial year – this is slightly
higher than the Q4 2023/24, when £4,299,821 was outstanding.
The value of the liability for 2024/25 has increased compared to
2023/24 and therefore it would be expected the outstanding
liability would be higher. The 2023/24
collection rate was 97.85%, therefore the overall collection rate
has improved compared to last year. |
N/A |
|
|
RE3 Time to process new Council Tax Reduction claims (days) |
Q4
28.90 days |
|
N/A |
In
Q4, the average time to process Council Tax Reduction |
|
N/A
|
|
RE4 Time to process new Housing Benefit claims (days) |
Q4
26.06 days |
|
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figure for all England for the same period last year was 19 days. |
In Q4 the average time to process Housing Benefit new claims was 26.06 days, this is a reduction on the Q3 figure of 19.43days. The reduction in processing speed can be linked to resource allocated to both the converging of the new Revenues and Benefits system and the annual year end process, this is in addition to vacancies in the service, which the service is now out to recruit. The service’s speed of processing Housing Benefit claims is below the Q4 2023/24 DWP national performance of 19 days for new claims. RAG rated amber. |
|
N/A
|
|
RE5 Time to process Council Tax Reduction changes in circumstances (days) |
Q4
3.35 days |
|
N/A |
The average time to process CTR change of circumstances has declined slightly from 2.69 days in Q3 to 3.35 days in Q4. This decline can be linked to resource allocated to both the converging of the new Revenues and Benefits system and the annual year end process. RAG rated green. |
|
N/A
|
|
RE6 Time to process Housing Benefit changes in circumstances (days) |
Q4 2.78 days |
|
The DWP-reported figure for all England for the same period last year was 3 days. |
An improvement in performance has occurred from Q3 for the average time to process Housing Benefit change of circumstances. In Q4 the average processing time was 2.78 days, an improvement to the Q3 average of 3.68 days. The Q4 figure is skewed due to the service being notified of annual rent and benefit uprating changes for the new financial year, subsequently the Q1 2025/26 average may be impacted. The improvement may also be a result of procedures being aligned across the service. The average speed of processing Housing Benefit change of circumstances is quicker than the DWP national performance of 3 days. RAG rated green. |
|
N/A
|
|
RE7 Procurement: % of total council spend with local suppliers |
Q4
53% |
|
North Yorkshire 2023/24 Q1 51% Q2 50% Q3 49% Q4 49% |
Q4 actual 53% against a target of 50%. RAG rated green as exceeding target. As at the end of Q4 all targets for local supplier, SME and voluntary and community sector spend have been achieved. Furthermore, the cumulative 2024/25 spend has also met all the targets in these areas. To ensure the quality of all the data within the finance system a full data review will be undertaken as part of the financial management system renewal procurement which is currently underway. |
|
N/A |
|
RE8 Procurement: % of total council spend with SME suppliers |
Q4
52% |
|
North Yorkshire 2023/24 Q1 41% Q2 43% Q3 45% Q4 45% |
Q4
actual 52% against a target of 50%.
|
|
N/A |
|
RE9 Procurement: % of total council spend with the voluntary and community sector |
Q4
4%
|
|
North Yorkshire 2023/24 Q1 3% Q2 3% Q3 3% Q3 4% |
Q4
actual 4% against a target of 3%. |
|
N/A |
