Venue: Multi-Location Meeting - Gloucester Room, Guildhall / MS Teams. View directions
Contact: Scrutiny Officer - 01792 636292
No. | Item |
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Disclosure of Personal and Prejudicial Interests Minutes: There were no disclosures of Personal and Prejudicial Interests. |
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Prohibition of Whipped Votes and Declaration of Party Whips Minutes: None. |
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To receive the minutes of the previous meeting(s) and agree as an accurate record. Minutes: Minutes of the previous meeting
were agreed. |
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Public Questions Questions can be submitted in writing to
Scrutiny scrutiny@swansea.gov.uk up until noon on the working day prior to the meeting.
Written questions take precedence. Public may attend and ask questions in
person if time allows. Questions must relate to items on the open part of the
agenda and will be dealt with in a 10 minute period. Minutes: There were no public questions
received. |
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Planning Annual Performance Report 2021/22 PDF 223 KB Invited to attend: Cllr David Hopkins – Cabinet
Member for Corporate Services & Performance Ian Davies - Development
Conservation and Design Manager Additional documents: Minutes: Cllr David
Hopkins and officers attended. They reported the following: ·
Planning Annual Reports are no longer a
requirement of Welsh Government however the Council still continue to provide
this. Data for benchmarking performance against other Local Authorities has not
been available since the pandemic. ·
There has been a significant increase in the
number of planning applications received, 29% more than in 2020/21. ·
97% of applications were dealt with within
agreed time scales. The target set by Welsh Government is 80%. ·
Despite the increase in the application numbers,
planning fee income has not kept pace. Compared to 2018/19 there were 300 more
planning applications but planning income in fees was £300,000 less which is
down to the type of applications being submitted. Application fees are set by
Welsh Government and an increase has not been indicated at this point. ·
Appeals performance was up slightly and again
above the previous years Welsh Government target. Where appeals are agreed, it
generally relates to matters of design. ·
The pandemic created a backlog of enforcement
due to officers not being able to attend sites as easily. The team were also
impacted by staff vacancies. ·
Enforcement investigation is a two stage
process. The initial investigation phase has a target of 84 days to
investigate. The second stage is to take appropriate action which could be an
enforcement notice, resolution, or granting planning permission. ·
The number enforcement complaints investigated
was a similar number to the previous year. Every complaint in investigated
however only 32% of investigations were completed in the 84 day target a
decrease from 51% in the previous year. Enforcement action is prioritised on
the seriousness of the breach. ·
The Local Development Plan (LDP) is due for
updating. Data for the LDP is gathered from comprehensive modelling and the
best available data from consultant partners to create economic forecasts with
the aim of gaining highest level of accuracy possible. |
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Annual Complaints Report 2021/22 PDF 254 KB Invited to attend: Cllr Andrea Lewis - Cabinet
Member for Service Transformation Cllr Louise Gibbard - Cabinet
Member for Care Servcies Sarah Lackenby – Head of Digital and Customer Services Additional documents:
Minutes: Cllr Andrea Lewis, Cllr Louise Gibbard and officers attended. They talked
through the following: ·
Due to the pandemic, complaints were
suppressed during 2020/21 but then dramatically increased as we emerged from
the lockdowns. The Ombudsman saw a 47% increase across the whole of Wales. ·
There has been delays the launching the new IT
system due to prioritising payments to support residents and businesses. The
system is complete, staff training is in development and the system will go
live as soon as possible. ·
Stage one (informal) corporate complaints
increased by 8% on the previous year. This was a total of 1274 complaints, 407
of which were justified. Stage two complaints were up by 16%. This was a total
of 154 complaints of which 25 were justified. ·
Corporate requests for service were up
significantly by 24%. There was also a significant increase in corporate
comments which were up by 38%. Welsh
language complaints remain relatively low. ·
Adult Services stage one complaints were up by
11% and stage two only have an increase of 1 complaint on last year’s figures.
Justified complaints were up by 53% which was mainly to do with delays in
arranging assessments or packages of care due to staff pressures including
external providers. Service pressures and recruitment issues in Adult Social
Services has been a challenge across Wales and the UK. ·
Child and Family Services showed a decrease,
stage one complaints went down by 19% and stage two was down by 1 complaint. ·
The Ombudsman’s annual letter reports 71
received complaints, down from 73 in the previous year. ·
76 Ombudsman’s complaints were closed during
2021/22, of this 76, 10 received intervention. Of the 10 that received
intervention, 6 had early resolution of voluntary settlement and 4 were upheld.
Comparing to the previous year, 67 complaints were closed and 9 received
intervention, of these 9, 5 had early resolution and 4 were upheld. ·
The complaints team hold discussions with
Heads to Service and Principal Officers looking at the nature of complaints and
any trends or frequency to look for potential improvements. ·
360 corporate complements were received with
96 for Adult Services and 100 for Child and Family Services. ·
Year on year trends are not reported but can
be made available in future reports. ·
Reflection on compliments can be as useful as
reflecting on complaints to compare areas where the Council are doing well. ·
Complaint response times are reported to the
Governance and Audit Committee. ·
Complaints coming into Communications and
Customer Engagement has increased. ·
25 of the 71 complaints received by the
Ombudsman were for Planning and Building Control and Roads and Transport. |
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Additional documents:
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Minutes: The Panel noted the work plan. |
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Letter to Cabinet Member - Corporate Services and Performance PDF 330 KB |
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Letter to Cabinet Member - Service Transformation and Care Services PDF 329 KB |