Agenda item

The Board considered a report of the Assistant Chief Executive which presented progress against the council’s corporate basket of performance indicators (PIs), Council Plan and service plan actions and reported other significant performance issues for the first quarter of 2015/16 financial year, covering the period April to June 2015. A presentation was given by the Head of Planning and Performance (for copy of report and slides, see file of minutes).

Councillor Hopgood commented on the statistic breakdown of adults aged 65+ who were admitted into permanent care and asked if the age range could be increased to 75+ to obtain a true comparison with other authorities.

Referring to a media article, Councillor Hillary queried the County Council’s policy on the use of bailiffs for the collection of council tax arrears. The Head of Planning and Performance would obtain the information from the service and report back to Councillor Hillary.

Councillor Bell noted that the number of domestic violence referrals to the Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) and the number of repeat offenders were lower in County Durham compared to other parts of the Country. He questioned whether the lower figures were a reflection of the behavior of people in County Durham or if the Council were successful first time around in preventing reoffending.

In response to a query from Councillor Lethbridge regarding domestic violence incident figures within the population, Jane Sunter, Public Health Portfolio Lead advised that she would feed comments back to the lead officer on domestic abuse and find out if such statistics were available.

Councillor Nicholls was unclear with regards to the health benefits of e-cigarettes and if they could be used in public places. Councillor R Bell asked that e-cigarette data be reflected in the performance figures. Jane Sunter, Public Health Portfolio Lead advised that Public Health England have embraced e-cigarettes to a certain extent as a step towards quitting smoking altogether. They state that they still use nicotine, however, report they are 95% better than smoking cigarettes. She added that a recent evidence update on e-cigarettes from Public Health England had been published and would arrange circulation to Board members.

Councillor Turnbull referred to sickness figures and asked if data had been collected on people who were on the sick due to accidents and questioned if they had been reported to the HSE.

Resolved:

That the information contained in the report be noted.