Wokingham

Wokingham District Council’s decision-making executive are set to consider the council’s performance plan at its meeting on Thursday (June 29).

The Wokingham district council’s performance plan outlines improvements that have been made to many local services including education, recycling, processing new benefit claims, council tax collection and dealing with planning applications, as well as providing a forecast for performance over the next three years.

The performance plan shows how Wokingham services have performed against a range of government-set ‘vital statistics’ called best value performance indicators (BVPIs) – in 2005/2006. There are 89 statutory best value performance indicators, plus 38 local performance indicators, known as (WDPIs).

Performance overall has improved by more than 10% in 2005/06 for over a quarter (36%) of all indicators. More than three quarters (79%) of the indicators met their targets and a total of 57% of the performance indicators for the Wokingham district council’s services are in the top half of councils nationally (2004/05 – latest comparative data available).

The Wokingham district continues to perform highly in education. In key stage three tests taken by 14-year-olds, the district is ranked fifth of all education authorities in the aggregated percentage of pupils achieving the expected level (five and above) in English (85%), maths (83%) and science (78%). And the district’s pupils also excelled at key stage two level five, which is higher than the expected level – the district came equal second in English (39%).

Residents of Wokingham district continue to recycle and compost household waste with indicators going up from 26.87% to 30.3% - this indicator puts the district council in the top quarter of all local authorities in the UK. Other services which did particularly well and made improvements in 2005/06 included the reduction in the number of missed refuse collections of household waste - down from 13.55 to 9.58 collections missed per 100,000.

The percentage of council tax collected increased from 98.55% to 99.12%, again placing the district council in the top 25 percent in the country. And processing benefit claims has also been dramatically improved over the past two year. In 2003/04, it took 110 days to process new claims, while in 2004/05 it took 46 days. This year (2005/06) new benefits were processed in 26 days.

The number of major planning applications decided within 13 weeks went up from to 39.7% to 63.29%. Some 99.6% of required inspections of food premises were carried out, compared to 92% last year. Also trading standards’ inspections have also improved significantly over the past year. In 2004/05, trading standards undertook 72% of inspections which should have been carried out whilst this year, they conducted 97%. Violent crime and vehicle crime have also been reduced over the past year.

Steps were taken last year to improve the number of urgent repairs on Wokingham tenants’ houses and a new contract was put in place to deal with these. And as a result, the number of urgent repairs completed within government time limits rose from 85.25% to 95.52%.

There are a number of areas where Wokingham council has not performed as well as it would have liked. Steps have already been taken to improve some of these indicators. One of the indicator looks at GCSE performance and this is being addressed by further development of the curriculum for 14 to 19- year-olds in each school to ensure that all needs are met. Work is also being undertaken to address specific core subjects which maybe have seen a dip in performance. Partnership working between the council and the secondary schools’ federation is expected to raising standards. Performance for 2005/06 was still well within the top quartile of all England authorities

Two indicators also look at the percentage of half days in secondary and primary schools missed due to absence and this is being tackled through the introduction of penalty notices. Penalty notices expand the range of options available, which also include regular truancy sweeps, to tackle unauthorised absences at school. Additional support is also given to schools if they have a particular issue with truancy.

Another indicator looks at the number of contacts Wokingham council has with young people through the youth service by increasing awareness of activities on offer. Awareness will continue to be raised over the coming year as the youth strategy is promoted in neighbourhoods throughout the district.

The council’s performance for acceptable waiting time for community care services went down in 2005/06 from 91.9% to 82.8% this year. The waiting time for services starts when the initial assessment is completed. The council, along with its partners, is working to improve waiting times for assessment which will have a knock on effect on overall waiting time for care packages.

Another indicator looks at the conditions of Wokingham footways. As only half of the network of well-used footways are surveyed for these indicators, the district council expects fluctuation in condition. The district council will be carrying out a improvements this year. However, the performance indicator still puts the district council in the top 25% of all authorities in England.

The council’s ten-strong decision making executive will also be asked to consider targets for the next three-year period.

Wokingham Cllr Frank Browne, leader of the council, said: “This plan gives our residents and statutory partners an overview of our services during 2005/2006 and shows how we have performed against key indicators and what improvements we have made over the past year. Performance indicators are a key tool in measuring our performance and help us to access efficiency gains. They also allow us to see where we maybe not performing as well as we would like to, and it provides us with the opportunity to address these issues.

“Many of the indicators place us in the top quarter of local authorities across the country which is great news for all our local residents. I would like to pay to tribute to all the council’s staff who work tirelessly to make improvements to services and continue to provide high quality services to our residents.”

The council’s performance plan 2006 is available on the council’s website at: www.wokingham.gov.uk/pp2006 or by calling (0118) 974 6513.

Wokingham District Council