Agenda item - Activity & Performance Data - Quarter 1 to Quarter 3

Agenda item

Activity & Performance Data - Quarter 1 to Quarter 3

Minutes:

The Community Environmental Health Manager, WRS, presented the Activity and Performance Data for Quarters 1, 2 and 3 for 2020/2021; and in doing so highlighted that, as Members would appreciate the year had continued to be a most extraordinary year in officer’s professional careers; with significant resources increased in quarter 3 with officers either being fully or partly engaged in the Covid-19 response.

 

ACTIVITY DATA

As highlighted by the Head of Regulatory Services during the previous agenda item, the suspension of the Food Hygiene inspection programme at the beginning of lockdown would see a significant backlog having to be addressed once lockdown restrictions were lifted. However, he would reassure Members that where intelligence indicated that a premises presented a problem, officers would continue to respond.

 

There had been an unexpected flurry of statutory nuisance work during November.

 

On the Health and Safety at Work front, there was a reversal of from the last quarter with accident numbers up and a fall in complaints and enquires.  However, two lengthy and complex investigations had concluded in quarter 3, which related to serious injuries being sustained at a workplace and a fatality in connection with leisure activities.

 

Although numbers increased into quarter 3, the number of licensing cases received in the year to date represented a reduction of approximately 31% and 24% compared to previous years. This was hardly surprising with the hospitality sector and night time economy significantly affected by COVID-19 restrictions and overall officers had seen a significant reduction in the volume of alcohol licensing applications, particularly for temporary event notices.

In quarter 3 planning application numbers continued to rise, following the trajectory predicted by our historical data. Information Requests, often associated with the planning and development process also continued on an upward trajectory during this period, supplemented by requests for information about the Covid-19 response.

Performance

Quarter 3 was a period in the year where reporting against the suite of indicators was more limited. The year continued reasonably well from a customer satisfaction perspective with the non-business customer measure at 73.6% and business customers at 98.1%. Given the demands and pressures on the service this year, this was seen as impressive.

 

People who felt better equipped to deal with issues had fallen slightly from 72.3% to 67.5%, however it was still above the 62% that it was this time last year.

Compliments outnumber complaints by around 4:1 (31:120). Staff sickness was up but still looking good at 1.65 days per Full Time Equivalent (FTE) This included additional staff taken on for the pandemic response. This was better than last year’s figure at Q3 (3.82 days per FTE.)

Members were further informed that, engagement with licensed premises featured heavily in Covid-19 related activity. Officers reported each year on the proportion of premises subject to allegations of failing to uphold the 4 licensing objectives.

The table below showed the levels of allegations that our normal indicator would yield up until 31st December 2020 and alongside these, the same figure if Covid-19 breaches were included in the calculation.

District

Normal Measure

With Covid-19 Breaches

Bromsgrove

4.9

15.8

Malvern Hills

3.0

8.3

Redditch

8.3

19.9

Worcester City

4.5

10.7

Wychavon

3.3

14.0

Wyre Forest

4.5

23.0

 

This reflected the hugely increased level of engagement with the licensing trade that WRS had seen during the pandemic. It was important to note that the vast majority of breaches identified had been minor and that the vast majority of pubs and restaurants with alcohol licenses had worked incredibly hard to achieve compliance and protect the health of customers. Now that premises could only operate as takeaways and alcohol sales had to be only by delivery, these figures should fall dramatically.

Members took the opportunity to thank officers for everything they had done throughout the pandemic and the work that they continued to do now.  Officers were doing a remarkable job and Members expressed their thanks for keeping people safe.

The Community Environmental Health Manager, WRS stated that he would be pleased to pass on the thanks expressed by Members to the teams.

RESOLVED that the Activity and Performance Data Quarters 1, 2 and 3 for 2020/2021, be noted and that Members use the contents of the report in their own reporting back to their respective partner authority.

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