To report on how the Directorate has performed against the Directorate Plan and performance targets and issues to be addressed in the future.

The Committee received a report on how the Environment Directorate (now the Environment and Culture Directorate) had performed against the Directorate Plan and performance targets and were informed of issues for the future.

The Director of Environment and Culture (formerly Director of Environment) reported that there were continuing financial pressures on budgets arising from the need to meet inflationary uplifts on non-staff costs and gave the example that the construction industry inflation figure was at 12%.  The review of the Amey contract was therefore critical to service delivery and cost management for future years.

He reported that the Directorate/Improvement Plan could be set out under four headings and commented that:

1. Customers – there was a need to ensure that services were representative of the wishes of the public and met the targets set.  This needed to be monitored e.g. through the Satisfaction Survey, and addressed if necessary.
2. Reputation – the Council needed to ensure that areas of good practice was known about and shared.  Further promoting the County as a good place to live and work would also help with staff recruitment and morale.
3. Value for Money – benchmarking against similar authorities would continue to ensure that a cost effective quality service was provided.  The issue of sustainability should also be considered, on which this authority was leading the way.
4. Staff – most staff lived in the County and therefore were also users or customers of the service.  Staff were encouraged to participate in staff opinion surveys.

On a general note he emphasised the need to both discuss and deliver projects with the Council’s partners.  He also commented on the need to identify assets and integrate services to ensure that they provided the right service in a timely efficient way.

Questioned on his comment regarding ensuring that the Herefordshire Council logo was given due prominence, he clarified that whenever or wherever the Council had been involved in a project or funding then the Council’s part in that project should be made known to the public.

Clarifying the comment on sustainability in relation to Value for Money the Committee noted that while financial, social and economic issues were automatically considered within projects the Council were actively looking to extend this to include sustainability issues. 

Responding to a comment regarding the loss of continuity, particularly when staff left the Council, the Director of Environment and Culture acknowledged that this had been an issue, particularly in highways, however, this was being addressed.  Amey also wished to ensure that local issues were addressed and therefore were keen to engage with Parish Councils.

In answer to a question concerning contract inflation the Director of Environment and Culture explained that it was common for contracts to be linked to a rate of inflation of which there were many methods of calculation.  Many environment contracts were linked to the construction industry method of calculation which, due to the high demand for steel and concrete in places like China and India and the increasing Olympic effect, meant that costs were high.

Returning to Value for Money a point was made that the Council needed to ensure that tenders and contracts were properly specified and monitored to ensure that over inflated prices were not being paid.

The Chairman thanked the Director of Environment and Culture for his report.