Issue - meetings

Hannah Thorpe, Head of Communications and Digital introduced the item for debate and highlighted the following points:

• Council was in a period of transition regarding the corporate priorities as there was a new corporate statement for 2019-2023 to be proposed for adoption at the 10 October Full Council meeting;
• In the meantime 2016-19 Corporate Priorities were used to measure performance for Q1 2019/20;
• In the main there were some positive performances;
• A high profile education programme had been carried out in summer. However there was still a need to increase public awareness regarding litter as more litter was being dropped in public spaces;
• A vehicle replacement programme was coming soon which would help improve waste collection;
• Council ,was keen to work with other coastal areas to exchange experiences on how to manage a clean environment;
• TDC staff had been involved in a litter picking campaign on 20 September. It was hoped that this campaign would be made a regular event moving forward;
• Decision time scales for homelessness had been improved and the number of applications had reduced as a result;
• Tackling ASBO was moving in the right direction;
• Targeted work had improved the handling of complaints;
• Staff sickness levels had gone down;
• FOIs were below target. However a new Head of Legal and Interim Head of Governance were now in post, which would improve the staffing levels for the department;

Members made comments and asked questions as follows:

• There was great work being done by the Homelessness Team;
• Planning stats were also very good;
• There were some concerns with litter picking in places where works were being carried out by Southern Water or Virgin Mobile in some streets and litter was not being picked;
• Staff sickness was still too high. What was the cause of the sickness was it stress related and was it long term?
• Was there a need to change the culture within the organisation in order to reduce sickness levels?
• Some of the missed waste collection was due to wrongly parked vehicles in some streets. There was a need to provide more clarity on the problems that were encountered by staff during waste collection;
• Some of the public bins were overflowing. There should be a faster route for councillor reporting on such issues;
• There was a need for more education on disposing of dog waste;
• Huge bins that had been set up in some parks had greatly improved the park environment;
• Signage on bins could be improved and beaches should be cleaned early in the mornings;
• Messages to take litter or waste home should be put across more politely;
• Could council consider introducing smaller but more frequently paced public bins?
• There were a high number of homeless women. Could the council consider setting up homeless units for women alone?
• Could a message be passed on to Malcolm, a member of the street cleaning team for a good job he is doing in Ramsgate.

Responding to Members comments Ms Thorpe and Bob Porter, Head of Housing and Planning  ...  view the full minutes text for item 194