Agenda item

Focus on Environmental Health

Context:

To undertake scrutiny of service delivery and performance across Public Protection in 2015/16. The Public Protection division comprises of Environmental Health, Trading Standards and Licensing. The recommendations are for the Committee to consider and comment on the contents of the report entitled ‘Public Protection Performance’ report for the year 2015/16.

          Key Issues:

Cabinet approved a report in March 2014 recommending budget reductions to Public Protection services for 2014/15 and the coming years. The reduction amounted to £140,000, representing a 7.2% staff decrease. The impact of this reduction was scrutinised by this Committee in November 2014, prior to a report going to Cabinet on 7^thJanuary 2015. At this time, Cabinet requested regular six month reports to Strong Communities committee to monitor performance and assess any negative impacts. The intention was to review progress and take any action deemed necessary.

The last performance report was submitted to this Committee on 14th September 2015.

The attached report summarises performance over the last financial year, 2015/16, and highlights the following –

·         the four service teams, for the vast majority of the services they deliver, meet the

·         Authority’s legal obligations in relation to Public Protection services.

·         there has been some decline in closing complaints within Public Health, for example concerning noise and other statutory nuisance cases.

·         six monthly reports will continue to be made to this Committee to assess the impact of budget reductions on Public Protection performance.

·         recent audits, by Wales Audit Office and Food Standards Agency Wales, indicate current performance is satisfactory within Environmental Health, but the service would struggle to take on any new statutory duties that protect the public and the environment.

Member Scrutiny:

Members asked how many staff the Environmental Health team had and we were told 6.5 plus a student.

We were told that the Student role was integral to the team. All of the student’s visits were supervised for the first few months until it was felt the student was able to work independently. The student’s duties included visiting fly tipping sites, collecting water samples, visiting dog fouling sites.

The Officers told the Committee about current projects such as the Eisteddfod, where their responsibilities spanned many areas include noise nuisance and food hygiene.

A Member asked how the team deal with air pollution and we were told that Environmental Health monitor air quality regularly, Currently Usk and Chepstow have air quality issues.

Members discussed enforcement in regard to dog fouling and littering with a Member telling the Committee of a local Council who publish pictures of members of the public littering as a deterrent.  

Members congratulated the Environmental Team on their vital work and asked officers what their concerns were. In response we were told that the team was working at full capacity and there concerns that increased workloads would create difficulty as it was felt that the team was already at saturation point and they were being as creative with their time as possible already.

Members feared that if the service was stretched further it would impact on public health which is paramount.