Local Government and Communities Minister Carl Sargeant (Lab, Alyn & Deeside) produced a report on how local authorities stand compared to one another with regard performance in a range of services for the period 2010-11.
Most of it mirrors my own assessment back in April, but here’s how Bridgend Council performed:
Social Care
- Number of days homeless families with children spent in B&B accommodation – Below Average (13 of 17)
- Older people (aged 65+) supported in the community per 1000 population – Above Average (7 of 22)
- Average monthly delayed transfers (aged 75+) of care per 1000 population – Good (6 of 22)
- Formerly looked-after young people with whom the authority is in contact – Poor (17 of 22)
Education
- Average capped wider score points for pupils aged 15 – Poor (18 of 22)
- % of pupils aged 15 who leave school without a recognised qualification or entering work-based training – Average (14 of 22)
- Percentage of SEN statements issued within 26 weeks, excluding exceptions – Poor (22 of 22) Significantly worse than every LA in Wales.
- Average points score for looked-after children aged 16 years – Average (11 of 22)
- % of pupils in care leaving without a recognised qualification – Below Average (5 of 11)
Leisure and Recreation
- Average number of free swims (under 16s and over 65s) – Good (3 of 22)
- Number of visits to public libraries per 1000 population – Poor (21 of 22)
Housing
- % of private dwelling vacant for longer than 6 months, returned to occupation within a year – Good (4 of 22)
- Average number of days taken to deliver disabled facilities grants – Below Average (16 of 22)
- Number of additional affordable houses provided as a % of all houses built during the year – Above Average (6 of 21)
Environment
- % of municipal waste sent to landfill – Good (2 of 22)
- % of municipal waste treated or recycled – Above Average (7 of 22)
- % of reported fly tipping cleared within 5 working days – Good (Joint 1 of 22) with Vale of Glamorgan
- % change in CO2 emissions in non-domestic public buildings – Above Average (7 of 20) Small increase in CO2 emissions, only 5 LA’s saw a fall or remained unchanged.
Transport
- % of A-roads in poor condition – Average (14 of 22)
- % of B-roads in poor condition – Average (10 of 22)
- % of C-roads in poor condition – Above Average (12 of 22)
- % of users very satisfied or fairly satisfied with local bus services – Poor (22 of 22)
Clearly the waste management is a feather in Bridgend’s cap – and I noted that last time. There’s an excellent record in reponding to fly-tipping and reductions in sending waste to landfill.There are clear weaknesses in performance here, in particular education (which I noted back in April), bus services (First Cymru and Stagecoach have a lot to answer for) but the stand out one is the SEN assessments, where the graph (on page 16 of the report) shows Bridgend significantly underperfomring compared to the rest of Wales. Bridgend scored less than 20%, while the “next worse” figure was close to 70%. That’s how bad it is.
This weekend, I’ll be looking in more detail at how the Welsh Government and leaders of the opposition have performed over the first year of the forth Assembly. That’ll be fun.
