Agenda item

To receive a quarterly performance update report from the Director of Environment and Housing and Assistant Chief Executive (Citizens and Communities).

The report of the Director of Environment and Housing and Assistant Chief Executive (Citizens and Communities) provided a performance update on both the Safer and Stronger elements of the Board’s remit.  However, as requested by the Board, there was a more detailed focus on the ‘Stronger’ elements as part of this update.

The following were in attendance for this item:

Councillor Gruen, Executive Member for Neighbourhoods, Planning and Personnel

Kathy Kudelnitzky, Chief Officer Communities

Rory Barke, Area Leader (Corporate)

Anne McMaster, Executive Officer, Citizens and Communities

Neil Evans, Director of Environment and Housing

Richard Ellis, Head of Finance (Supporting Environment & Housing)

Charles Oxtoby, Head of Finance (Strategy and Resources)

To accommodate officer attendance, the Chair requested that the Board considers those areas linked to the Citizens and Communities directorate and the Communities Board in the first instance.  In doing so, the Chair also requested that any questions relating to the financial health of this directorate (linked to the next agenda item) be addressed during this session too.

As such, the following issues relating to the Citizens and Communities directorate and the Communities Board were discussed by the Board:

·  Communities Board – Members received an overview of the locality and citywide projects being developed by the Communities Board which are due to commence in January 2015.

·  Partnership working – linked to the project work of the Communities Board, Members reiterated the importance of working closely with partners to improve coordination and maximise resource.

·  Measures of success – whilst acknowledging the complexity of many of the issues being addressed by the Communities Board, Members emphasised the need for the Communities Board to establish clear outcomes and measures of success linked to its project work.

·  Poverty Truth Challenge – Members noted the 3 work strands linked to the Poverty Truth Challenge and particularly welcomed the work strand around stigma and the perception of poverty.

·  Community Centres – Members discussed the budget savings target of £110k linked to Community Centres and reiterated the importance of Elected Members being engaged as part of the rationalisation of existing centres and efficiencies in Facilities Management charges.

The Board moved onto the performance areas linked to the Environment and Housing directorate and the following issues were discussed:

·  Street cleanliness – Members discussed the criteria used in measuring street cleanliness and a suggestion was made for other forms of local intelligence gathering, such as Estate walkabouts, to also be taken into consideration, particularly in any hotspot estates.

·  Police Community Support Officers – reference was made to the new national powers given to PCSOs and how these are being applied locally.  It was noted that this issue was being picked up as part of the Board’s ongoing inquiry linked to the role of PCSOs and integrated partnership working.

·  Brown bin collection service – Members discussed alternative forms of communication for notifying residents about their brown bin collection service and noted the saving made by not issuing household letters.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.

(Councillor J Jarosz left the meeting at 11.00 am during consideration of this item)