The Director of Technical Services submitted a report providing an overview of progress made against the performance indicators for 2009/2010 and key projects which are relevant to this Committee.

The report sets out overall performance against the 2009/10 project relevant to the Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee and corrective actions were detailed in section 3.3.

 -  Of the 40 projects relevant to this Committee there are 33 projects that are green (all milestones had been met)

-  6 of the 40 projects had amber status (some non-critical milestones had been missed or there was a danger of non-critical slippage). Corrective action to bring these projects back on track was provided.

-  1 project had been withdrawn. 

In terms of achievements:

-  100% of the 455 Technical Service complaints resolved in the quarter were done so within the 15 day time limit.  The service area experiencing highest volumes was the Refuse Collection Service with 377 complaints, representing a 1300% increase from the previous quarter, the sole contributing factor to this drastic increase was the adverse weather conditions experienced in early January and the consequents disruptions to key services such as domestic waste collections.

-  A total of 1033 contacts were recorded from Councillors or MP’s (compared to 899 in the previous quarter), Technical Services accounted for 78% (803) of all Councillor/MP contacts received (increase from 72.5% in previous quarter) and resolved 98% of the closed contacts within the 10 day time scale.

-  In Dec 2009 Wirral Council, with its local NHS partners, launched ‘CRed Wirral’, an interactive website to help people cut pollution from energy use at home, work and through travel. The initiative will contribute to the Council’s target to reduce carbon emissions 60% by 2025.

-  Wirral Climate Change Group was leading on the Wirral Wide Carbon Reduction Action Plan (NI 186) with its LSP and other external partners. Activities and outcomes were monitored through the LSP’s Living and Working Environment Partnership

-  Ongoing Climate Change training and workshops, CLASP, PlanIT4Cast, held with LSP and external partners in support of NI 185, 186 and 188 activities

-  Road safety partners in Wirral had made significant progress in reducing the number of traffic casualties in the borough across all ages, particularly children.

-  At the end of 2009 – 2010 analysis showed that the crime rate was the lowest rate of recorded crime of any of the Merseyside authorities and had the eighth lowest rate of crime within the North West Region.  The latest performance figures follow four years of significant crime reductions.

-  14125 anti-social behaviour incidents had been reported during  2009/10.  This was lower than the target set and an improvement on performance at the same stage as last year. 

-  All indicators measuring youth alcohol referrals exceeded annual targets.  The aim of these indicators was to prevent a recurrence of the inappropriate use of alcohol by young people by providing for the young person and their parents an intervention from trained alcohol workers following any event where the young person has abused alcohol and behaved inappropriately.  This was due to the success of activities complementing this intervention, including initiatives such as 'Operation Stay Safe', in mobilising a well coordinated and targeted response to alcohol fuelled anti social behaviour. 

-  During 2009 – 2010 Wirral's Joint Community Safety Team a co-located multi agency team focused upon reducing levels of crime and anti social behaviour reduced the number of fires associated with anti social behaviour by 46% and reduced the number of cases of criminal damage reported to the Police by 52%.

-  A stronger communities project had been developed and was now in operation based at The Lauries Centre.  This multi agency operation to improve the quality of life of the residents within this area against a range of indicators which include crime, anti social behaviour, health, employment and appearance of the neighbourhood is an intelligence lead programme which followed analysis of a number of national indicators.

-  Increased number of Green Flags for parks to 11.

-  Percentage visits to museums and galleries in Wirral ranked third highest in England.

-  Percentage use of public libraries in Wirral first for all metropolitan authorities.

In respect of the financial position, departmental monitoring focused on those areas of the budget that were identified as key risks, and projected variations were identified within the report (section 5 refers).  

The Director responded to questions from member concerning:-

-  the interpretation of data regarding contacts recorded and closed within the required timescale

-  the deterioration in the indicators for levels litter and detritus (NIs 195a and 195b) and the monitoring of recovery plans to improve the situation

-  the projected deficit of income levels against targets for the Regeneration Department

Resolved – That the Committee note the contents of this report.