Agenda item - Activity and Performance Data - Quarter 2

Agenda item

Activity and Performance Data - Quarter 2

Minutes:

The Environmental Health & Trading Standards Manager
Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS), presented the Activity and Performance Data, Quarter 2 report. 

 

The Environmental Health & Trading Standards Manager
WRS, reported that the number of food safety interventions had remained on par with previous years.  Complaints and enquiries were down over the summer compared with previous years and that there had been a notable dip in August, when officers would normally expect to see a peak.  This had enabled officers to task allergen work into the programme.

 

Health and Safety enquiries and complaints/service requests remained broadly in line with 2018/2019.  The greater proportion of accidents related to injuries to members of the public or injuries to a worker being incapacitated for more than seven consecutive days.  Several resource intensive formal investigations were ongoing with the likelihood of legal proceedings.

 

The number of requests for support from planning colleagues remained significantly up in quarter 2.  During the last quarter the team reviewed and provided advice on over 500 potential sites for Strategic Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment to inform the review of the South Worcestershire Development Plan.

 

Quarter 2 saw the Director of Public Health, Highways, WRS and County and district Sustainability team representatives attend the first comprehensive air quality action forum for Worcestershire.  This was an exciting development and was the first time that all stakeholders had committed to having a role in improving health and air quality.

 

The Dog Warden Team had had another busy quarter with a total of 418 dogs being reported to WRS as strays.  Over 300 were reunited with their owners and a further 67 were successfully rehomed by WRS through reputable charities. Sadly 8 of the dogs were welfare cases, where possible improvement notices were issued to owners.  In addition to this a further 9 dogs required veterinary treatment for other ailments. 

 

In general WRS had performed well against the agreed indicators.  The percentage of service requests where a resolution was achieved to customer satisfaction was higher than it had been for some time at over 73%.  Business satisfaction remained excellent at over 98%. The proportion of people who felt better equipped to deal with issues in the future following WRS interventions was also up on previous quarters at 63%.

 

The processing measure for taxi licences was over 75% within 5 working days and were all issued before the licences expired.  This was slightly higher in the past so officers would look at to why this has slipped.  The figure for defective vehicles whilst in service as taxis was similar to the figures at the end of last year (30 compared to 44), so slightly up on the half year figure last year (17).  The Licensing Team have spoken with the garages carrying out the tests and have emphasised the need to feed this information back to Licensing officers as it was key intelligence as to how well drivers were maintaining their vehicles.

 

Sickness figures increased slightly to 2.9 days per full time equivalent (PFTE), compared to 2.8 (PFTE) last year.

 

The income figure as a proportion of budget was 5.3% for 2019/2020.  As previously highlighted WRS had yet to fill the gap left by the loss of one of the dog related contracts that was worth £60,000 per annum.

 

RESOLVED that the Activity and Performance Data report for Quarter 2, be noted; and that Board Members use the contents of the report to inform each of their partner authorities.

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