Some of the Achievements in Nottingham from April 2005 to March 2006
In summary -
- better performance management, better performance, departmental spending controlled, efficiencies made;
- visible new investment in the city centre; best local transport planning sustained;
- restoration of Wollaton Hall started; major exhibitions like the Waking Dreams Pre-Raphaelite exhibition continued;
- crime down, fear of crime down, experience of anti-social behaviour down; cleaner streets;
- sustained improvement in educational attainment; adult social care is improving; slightly better public health, lower operation waiting times;
- better partnership working between public agencies, including the first of the new joint service centres;
Labour’s ambition for Nottingham and the increased spending on public services has driven the progress.
The Liberal Democrats on Nottingham City Council remain under-whelming, saying next to nothing on the Executive Board. More a franchise than a political party.
Nottingham Tories fail to show any ambition for the city and are relentlessly miserable. Financially imprudent, they continue to claim that Council tax rates can be cut with one-off sums of money and advocate ways of spending extra money rather than actually say what they’d cut. Crime doubled under the Tories.
Performance Management of Nottingham City Council -
Performance is tracked in a new system called "PerformancePlus" and this has enabled information on performance to be reported within 2 months of each quarter-end for the first time.
Measures of performance are called indicators and the most important are called key indicators. Of these, 50 can be directly compared against last year and 55% of these have improved and 29% have been maintained this year.
There has been significant progress in delivering the actions underpinning the Council’s priorities that were set out in the Strategic Plan Refresh (2005-06). Over half of the key performance indicators demonstrated better performance than in 2004/05. Also, 8 of the 13 LPSAs have been achieved. This builds on the general performance improvements that have been made, with over three-quarters of all performance indicators improved over the last 3 years.
The performance of the City Council is improving, but inspectors and other external bodies suggest other councils are improving faster. So a series of new commitments were made to improve further, at February's Executive Board.
Financial Management of Nottingham City Council -
Departmental spending has been actively managed and broadly balances at the end of the financial year. The most significant achievement has been made by Social Services, which in many cities overspends, sometimes dramatically so.
The drive on efficiencies means the Council can present savings of £14 million over the last 2 years in its Annual Efficiency Statement.
Achievements for 2005/06
Regeneration of the Eastside has commenced kick-starting an investment of £900 million.
Work started on restoration to Wollaton Hall, securing £7.8 million funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and European Regional Development Fund.
Nottingham City Council has provided jobs for over 170 New Deal starters.
Local Transport Plan (LTP) Annual Progress Report for 2004/05 secured the highest score in the Country from the Government in December - receiving the highest category assessment of 'Very Promising'.
Progress has been made in tackling crime and the fear of crime - gun crime fell by 15% and fear of crime fell by 6% (MORI). Also, there was a significant reduction in the number of domestic burglaries.
The percentage of people indicating that they have personally been affected by anti-social behaviour has reduced from 73% in March 2004 to 35% in September 2005 (ASB Surveys, Keydata company).
There have been significant and measurable improvements to street cleanliness, reflected in a further increase in the percentage of streets that meet nationally defined standards. There have also been more positive satisfaction levels. This resulted from the effective action that was taken to create a cleaner city, with the 2005 ‘Big Spring Clean’ successfully following the ‘100 Day Clean Up’ in 2004.
Sustained improvement in educational attainment. The quality and standard of Early Years education is above the national average. For Key Stage 3, Nottingham has recorded some of the highest improvements since 2003 of any authority in the country. At GCSE, there is a continued good progress and the gap between Nottingham and the national average is decreasing. 8 out of 12 schools inspected by Ofsted between September 2005 and March 2006 were graded outstanding or good for teaching and learning. Attendance rates continue to improve.
The Local Strategic Partnership, One Nottingham, received a successful “Fresh Start” through the significant investment of senior management and councillor time and resources.
The Customer Information Point opened in the Guildhall.
The first Joint Service Centre in Clifton, The Clifton Cornerstone, opened providing local access to services from the Council, Nottingham City Homes Limited and the Primary Care Trust.
Adult social care is improving, with increased numbers of households receiving an intensive homecare service. We are making assessments more quickly and have significantly lowered waiting times for care packages.
We remain one of the best in the country at attracting visitors to our museums and galleries through major exhibitions like the Waking Dreams Pre-Raphaelite show. Sport & leisure facilities are being improved, with an increasing focus on addressing health inequalities. Libraries have extended opening hours and have introduced self-service facilities.
Very high level summary of trends in Nottingham
(reported in a One Nottingham report - Ward Report 2006) -
people in work down;
number of claimants down;
premature deaths due to cancer and cardiovascular diseases falling slightly;
education attainment generally up;
burglary and car crime down; violence against the person up;
Expanding on the fight against crime ...
Crime in Nottinghamshire has fallen by 14.5% over the last three years; in February 2006 all crime was at its lowest for six years; vehicle crime was at its lowest for six years; violent crime was at its lowest for nearly two years; at 24.2% the force's sanction detection rate was the highest for more than five years.
Over the past five years:
· All crime has reduced by 10,864 offences (14.7% drop) in the City
· All burglary has reduced by 2308 offences (35% drop) in the City
· Robbery has reduced by 122 offences (6.1% drop) in the City
· Vehicle crime has reduced by 2490 (19.5%) in the City
NHS improving and finances coming under control
The latest 6 month report on the NHS was published in June showing that NHS deficits have come down by over £100 million in six months and the quality of NHS care is continuing to improve, with maximum waits for operations down to six months and more than nine out of ten A&E patients seen within four hours. The report shows the deficits represents less than one per cent of the annual NHS budget.
[Last updated 2006-06-16 based on notes from 2006-06-09, 2006-02-21, 2005-12-20 and 2005-09-03]
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