The improvement since last year - our Direction of Travel
report
Summary
20 Bath
and North East Somerset Council is improving well.
What evidence is there of the Council improving outcomes?
21 The
Council is improving the value for money from its key services. It
has exceeded the government set efficiency targets, and this year
it is forecasting efficiency gains of £3.5 million. It continues to
maintain low levels of spending overall compared to others and
particularly in the service areas of education and the environment,
while delivering these to a high standard. It also manages to
maintain these generally high standards of service delivery while
keeping its council tax increases below the national average rate
of increase.
22 The
Council is improving its performance across a range of national
performance indicators. Of these selected indicators, 66 per cent
improved over the last year. This is an above average rate of
improvement compared to other councils and is a significant
increase on its own average in the previous year (53 per cent).
This performance is even more notable given that the Council also
has an above average, 41 per cent of performance indicators in the
best quartile compared to the national average for similar councils
(29 per cent). This is in itself a significant improvement on last
year, when it was 21 per cent.
23 The
Council is starting to show improving customer satisfaction
results. Its own monitoring of satisfaction shows a significant
improvement on residents' over-all satisfaction since the last
national user survey a year ago. At that time, the Council had one
of the lowest satisfaction levels relative to similar councils. But
the latest survey shows that 59 per cent of residents are satisfied
with the Council which is above the 2006 national average level of
51 per cent. This latest survey also shows that it has stabilised
the satisfaction levels for many services. Significantly, the
satisfaction with household waste collection has improved showing
that its previous dip in satisfaction levels with this service is
likely to be a consequence of a change to the service that caused
short-term disruption when people were being questioned for the
2006 national satisfaction survey.
Sustainable communities and transport
24 The
Council’s is making positive progress in implementing many major
building redevelopment schemes that aim to provide significant
outcomes for local people across a range of social, environmental
and economic measures. This includes integrated public transport,
new affordable homes, leisure, and workspaces, along with new
employment, learning and lifestyle facilities for local people.
25
The government has again assessed the Council as being a high risk
for not meeting national targets for the speed of processing
planning applications. The Council previously made this part of the
service a priority for improvement and it has introduced new
processes aimed at improving performance but these have yet to
deliver the same pace of improvement in other councils. It remains
one of the worst performers in the country for processing some
categories of planning application. In addition, customer
satisfaction with the service is low and the cost of the planning
service is also high compared to other councils.
26 The
Council is delivering many projects to promote alternatives to car
use and it is delivering a range of initiatives to ease the City’s
congestion problems. Some of these projects involve joint work with
neighbouring authorities in the West of England sub-region. The use
of local bus services continues to grow with bus passenger numbers
13.7 per cent higher in 2006/07 than the previous year bucking the
national trend of declining bus usage. Bath and North East Somerset
is one of the few areas outside London to achieve growth in bus
passenger numbers every year since 2001.
27
Recycling performance is at an all time high for the
Council. It is one of the top performers for waste management and
continues to reduce the amount of waste sent for landfill. One of
the Council’s waste minimization projects, that involved a family
of five reducing their waste to the equivalent of one yoghurt pot,
received national media attention and the initiative won a national
recycling award.
28
Likewise, the Council continues to improve the
cleanliness of public land and it has maintained its position as an
improving high performer across a range of measures. It is
currently implementing a three-year rolling programme of
environmental improvements called ‘deep clean, keep clean’ for some
neighbourhoods. The programme is delivered in partnership with
other agencies and encourages the participation of local
communities.
Safer and stronger communities
29 The
Council continues to expand its activities aimed at creating a
safer community. It has introduced new initiatives in the last year
with the aim to reduce the fear of crime and under-age
drinking.
30 It has
maintained its score of ‘good’ in the annual performance assessment
of its benefits service and the detailed report on this service
shows some significant progress. In particular there is significant
upwards movement on customer facing and resource management
measures. On some indicators, the performance is excellent and
there are no parts of the service that fall short of minimum
standards.
Healthier communities
31 The
Council is delivering a wide range of initiatives aimed at
improving the health of its local community. These range from
reducing fuel poverty, helping people to stop smoking, to
well-publicised schemes to get people active such as organised runs
for women. The Council, in conjunction with its partners, continues
to expand its healthy lifestyle initiative called Passport to
Health. The purpose is to help people make informed decisions about
their health and break the cycle of health inequality. It targets
areas where deprivation is highest. A recent review shows
encouraging results with over 240 people benefiting from the
programmes and 95 per cent of participants reporting the scheme had
made a positive impact on their health.
32 The Council
has only made limited progress in strengthening its organisational
arrangements for ensuring fair and equal treatment for its staff
and customers. It remains at level 2 of the national equality
standard and a number of equalities related performance indicators
remain below average compared to other councils. Weaknesses in
systematic approaches to achieving equal and fair access to
services have been noted in a number of recent external assessments
of the Council’s services, and the Council is developing its plans
to address this.
Adult social care
33 The
Council’s progress on improving adult social care services is
variable. While the parts of the service measured by key
performance indicators all show improvement, other areas have not.
Consequently, the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) has
given the Council a lower score this year. The assessment
identifies a number of weaknesses in the service and in particular,
on having robust arrangements for the safeguarding of vulnerable
adults. Likewise, a recent CSCI inspection of older people services
concluded that it is serving some people well, which is a lower
score than previously. The inspection found weaknesses in the
quality of delivery of some aspects of the service and providing
equitable access. Promoting the independence of older people is one
of the Council’s ten corporate improvement priorities.
Children and young people
34 The Council
consistently delivers services for children and young people at a
good level in all respects and continues to improve from this high
base. It has maintained its score of ‘good’ in the annual
performance assessment of its children’s services. The developing
integration and good cooperation between all children’s services
and other agencies are having a positive impact. As a result, there
are clear indications of significant improvements in the
achievement and well-being of children and young people. Standards
are above those of similar authorities and well above national
averages for most indicators.
