Agenda item

Activity & Performance Data - Quarter 1 2020/21

Meeting of Virtual Skype meeting, Worcestershire Regulatory Services Board, Thursday 1st October 2020 4.30 p.m. (Item 17/20)

Minutes:

The Licensing and support Services Manager, Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) presented that Activity and Performance Data for Quarter1 2020/2021.

Members were informed that the report focused on Quarter 1, but the actual data allowed a comparison with previous quarters and years.

At the last Board meeting in June, Members received an update on the work the service had undertaken in relation to Covid 19 since the beginning of lockdown. The report focused on the other work carried out during quarter 1, on what was often referred to as our ‘business as usual’ activities rather than the disease response work that featured in the June report.

The first quarter of 2020/2021 commenced with the economy in lockdown and with many of the businesses WRS would normally deal with either closed or operating on a different trading model (by takeaway for food or delivery for non-food products). This made this quarter unlike any other in the 10-year history of WRS.

The Food Standards Agency suspended the Food Hygiene inspection programme at the beginning on lockdown in March and this continued throughout the first quarter. This explained the low number of inspections, reflecting that the service was mainly engaging with new entrants to the sector or those wanting re-rating. Any allegations of serious misconduct were followed up.

Stray dog numbers continued to follow their downward trend. Officers were concerned that the economic difficulties might lead to a spike in dog abandonment as people decided that they could not afford to feed their pets, however it appears that the government’s financial measures, whilst not having this in mind, may have had a spin off in preventing this.

Numbers of license applications were also down in quarter 1. Usually there would be an increase in applications for temporary event notices during this period but with pubs shut and music festivals off the menu for much of the summer, these applications were not received

Planning application numbers fell during quarter 1, again linked to the lockdown. However, numbers started to rise again sharply subsequent to this. Environmental Information Requests often associated with the planning and development process were also down for this period.

One area that didn’t fall was nuisance/ pollution complaints. With many more people working from home and encountering situations they would not normally encounter.

Members were often reminded that the reportable performance indicators were more limited in quarter 1, but the year appears to have started reasonably well from a customer satisfaction perspective, with the non-business customer measure at 74.6% and business customers at 99.3%. Given the pressure on the service during quarter 1 this was seen as positive.

Compliments outnumbered complaints by 3:1 (18:6) and staff sickness was looking reasonably good at 0.61 days per FTE. This was on a par with previous years at quarter 1 (0.75).

Councillor J, Raine, Malvern Hills District Council commented that it would be useful to have the previous year’s figures included as a benchmark.

RESOLVED that the Activity and Performance Data report for Quarters 1, be noted; and that Board Members use the contents of the report in their own reporting back to fellow Members of each partner authority.

Supporting documents: