Issue - meetings

Councillor John Brady, Cabinet Member for Finance, Performance and Risk, presented a report which provided a summary of progress against Wiltshire Council’s Business Plan, including:

• Performance indicators for Community Results and Council Performance for the period April to December 2011. 
• The status of the Council’s main programmes.

Comments and questions were raised on the plan as follows:

• Ref 2005 – Concern was raised in relation to the low figure for the number of children in care getting 5 A*-C GCSEs.  However, Scrutiny had identified that this was due to children in care often taking their exams in different timescales, which the monitoring did not take into account.
• Ref 2001 – It was noted that there was a constant need for volunteers as foster carers, and another recruitment campaign would be run.
• Ref 3007 – Councillors welcomed the high number of volunteers in the Library Service, commenting that this was a great example of using community involvement in running and extending service availability.
• Ref 5001 – Concern was raised over the fall in customer telephone call connection rates.  This was being addressed and figures had improved since November 2011.
• Ref 6001 – Concern was raised over the high level of alcohol related hospital admissions.  It was noted that the licensing service was taking action against irresponsible licensees who sold alcohol to under 18s, and to people who were already drunk, and there had been a number of successes in this area recently.  However, it was noted that licensees were under pressure to maintain sales due to rents and prices increasing, and were also faced with difficulties caused by fake IDs.  It was reported that the Touch2ID scheme had proved successful in the Melksham area.

Resolved:

To note progress against the Business Plan.

Reason for Decision

To provide Cabinet with a summary of progress against the Business Plan.