Agenda item

To inform the Committee of the performance of the Public Protection Partnership in line with the operating model and business plan, and provide an update setting out performance during the second quarter of 2024/25.

The Committee considered the report (Agenda Item 8) which outlined the performance of the Public Protection Partnership (PPP) in line with the operating model and business plan, and provided a performance update following the second quarter of 2024/25.

Finances

The year end budget forecast was for a zero outturn. This took account of the £90k pressure at Bracknell Forest and the management of income pressures.

Risk

The current key risks related to operational and management capacity due to the number of vacancies being held across the PPP and the financial pressure which affected the ability to cover off the resource gaps. The focus of the service remained on priority areas.

Human Resources

The report outlined successful recruitment since the last meeting. This included:

·       Enforcement Officer for Age Restricted Products (one year fixed term post).

·       Two Environment Health Officers.

·       Principal Officer for Private Sector Housing.

It would however be necessary to go back out to advert for the Strategic Manager – Case Management Unit.

An officer had qualified as a practitioner for Age Restricted Sales.

ICT Update

Procurement for the new ICT system had commenced.

Governance

Officers had attended a number of community events during Q2.

Building Safer Communities

Event safety and noise monitoring work was ongoing, as were operations covering areas including offensive weapons and 0% nicotine disposable vapes.

Improved Living Environment

A number of unlicensed Houses in Multiple Occupancy (HMOs) were in the process of being inspected and the report outlined serious concerns for some of these.

The number of service requests for housing were detailed in the report and the proportion of those that related to Registered Social Landlords.

There had been 227 domestic nuisance service requests in Q2.

Safety in the Workplace

Officers had dealt with 54 health and safety at work requests during Q2, with 33 workplace accidents reported.

Further investigation was being conducted into hygiene and sterilisation in hairdressers and barbers.

Safe and Healthy Food Chain

Food hygiene inspections were close to getting back on schedule.

Compliments

Compliments were outlined in Appendix B. The number of compliments far outweighed the number of complaints.

Questions

Members asked a number of questions of Officers and received the following information in response:

·       The workload had increased across the PPP, resulting from an increase in demand in a range of areas and the need to catch up on some areas of work. Workload was a key factor in determining the priority areas for the service.

·       Work was ongoing to increase resource levels to help meet the increased demand. This was via a combination of recruiting new members of staff and developing existing officers.

·       The recruitment of the Strategic Manager for the Case Management Unit had proved problematic as there was a very competitive market for this type of post. An option moving forward could be to evaluate and update the job description.

·       A particular issue, with vacant posts, was the fact that additional work fell on existing officers thereby lessening their capacity to do their day job.

·       Government funding had been received to conduct a full review of vaping products. A number of non-compliant products had been seized and a significant level of variation had been found in terms of nicotine levels. The Government would be banning disposable vapes from 2025/26 and the enforcement of this would be for the PPP to conduct.

·       The level of abatement notices served in Q2 was noted as being low and it was explained that an incremental approach was taken in line with the Nuisance Policy. Efforts were also made to deal with nuisance complaints via mediation, lessening the need for abatement notices.

·       Hairdressers and barbers needed to be registered and inspections found that some were not. A public health survey would be undertaken to better understand hygiene and sterilisation levels in these establishments.

RESOLVED that the Committee were informed about:

·       The 2024/25 Q2 data for the Public Protection Service as set out in Appendix A.

·       The update on service delivery.