Agenda item

The Executive Director of Resources introduced the Progress and Delivery report for period 1 2018/19, and gave apologies on behalf of the Executive Director of Operations.

The Executive Director of Resources updated the Committee on pieces of work that the Council were undertaking, and whether they were above or below their achievement target.  These pieces of work are summarised below:

·         The green waste collection had seen a positive roll-out with a higher than expected number of subscribers;

·         The number of new users of the Leisure Centre was exceeding expectations;

·         The Trinity Arts Centre was achieving higher patronage than anticipated;

·         Council Tax and Business Rates collection to date was below target, partly due to the 12 month instalment option, meaning that rates cannot be collected as early as they previously had been;

·         Development Management had income currently below target;

·         A number of outstanding enforcement cases had been closed, which in turn had led to a higher average closure time for enforcement cases;

·         Regulatory services were subject to a briefing requested by Prosperous Communities Committee;

·         The use of bed and breakfast accommodation in home choices cases had been below target for at least the last five months.  This would be continually monitored;

Following this summary, the Housing and Enforcement Manager explored the issues being experienced by the Enforcement team, before addressing issues around food safety.  These topics are summarised below:

·         Over a period of time there had been a high demand for dealing with planning enforcement cases.  This had led to an agreement for an additional resource;

·         The audit of Enforcement requested by the Governance and Audit Committee recommended that some of the enforcement measures reported by Progress and Delivery be changed; this was in part because the timescales of cases in the hands of the inspectorate could not be controlled by WLDC;

·         Timescales of enforcement cases would be something that the new enforcement officer would look to address;

·         The aim was to provide an initial response to planning enforcement cases within 20 working days.  This had been achieved 77% of the time in the first three months of 2018;

·         In the first three months of this year 111 cases had been closed, compared to 210 closures in the whole of the previous year;

·         The average length of an enforcement case was 107 days if the legacy cases (of over a year old) were removed;

·         There was an ongoing internal audit covering food safety.  The targets were still not being met but officers were confident that the level will improve;

·         There were around 97% of food premises in the district rated at 5* or above.  The focus was always on Category A or B businesses, which are larger premises; all other premises were assessed in line with the Food Standards Agency guidelines;

·         There were more food safety visits than shown in the Progress and Delivery report, but they were not full visits;

·         Premises can fail on paperwork alone; in some instances the overall rating can be low as a result of this. If the business pays a fee after having had a food safety visit, then inspectors will re-visit and reassess within a certain timeframe.  Previously, the re-visit would have to be rescheduled for later in the year.

RESOLVED to note the report.