Agenda and minutes

Councillor Clarke and Routley declared interests as Members of the Board of Newport Transport.

a)     City Services

b)     Regeneration Investment and Housing

a)    City Services

Attendees:

-       Councillor Roger Jeavons (Cabinet Member for Streetscene)

-       Bev Owen (Strategic Director – Place)

-       Paul Jones (Head of Streetscene and City Services)

The Head of City Services presented a brief overview to the Committee and highlighted the key areas for consideration. He advised that most of the defined objectives were ongoing, none were currently behind but some had not commenced in the first half of the financial year. The service area’s budget was marginally overspent by £100,000,  but within the operational budget.  He explained that different challenges arose on a daily basis.

With regard to Performance Indicators in the Service Area, 8 were on target (Green), 4 were  Amber and 1 was Red:  “Management Information – Return to Work form completed within 7 calendar days” which was an issue in other areas and the system was being looked at to improve  flexibility to allocate  a supervisor if the nominated supervisor was away from work.

The Head of Service advised the Committee that for Performance Indicator PAM /010 – Bi-monthly % cleanliness inspections of highways & relevant land –  the challenge was delivering the same service to a widening City within the limited resources.

The Cabinet Member added that the permanent reversal of the flow of traffic within the household waste recycling transfer centre was planned to take place over the Christmas and New Year period.

Members asked the following:

·           A Member enquired about the performance monitoring cycle, in particular what happened to the information reported following the meeting. The Head of Service advised that the update before the Committee demonstrated  the Service Area’s performance against its Service Plan at the Mid-Year stage and an update  would be reported to the Committee on the Service Area’s performance at the Year-End stage.

The Strategic Director added that the information was collated in the Management Information Hub and reported to Heads of Service and Directors on a monthly basis. Information was fed through to the Corporate Management Team, who discussed how the department should address the performance and what could be improved.

Objective 1 – Introduction of Civil Parking Enforcement within the City boundary

·         A Member referred to the collaboration work with the other 4 Gwent authorities and Rhondda Cynon Taff upon the related back office function of processing fixed penalty notices. It was clarified that Civil Parking Enforcement Officers would be employed by the Council at the front end of the service.  When the Council took over enforcement it was expected that over the 6-12 month period that a lot of tickets will be issued and it was hoped that that this would change people’s behaviour. Work was taking place with private care parks, and there was a need to make the public aware of signs and lines, which if done too early could lose impact.  The Press releases would begin in July and a dummy run of warning tickets was planned.

·         The Cabinet Member advised that there had been fortnightly meetings with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.