Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 The Directors' Group receives performance reports from each service area on a four monthly cycle. The attached report provides details of performance and key issues arising in Culture and Leisure services to April 2004. Culture and Leisure services include: Heritage Services, Leisure Services, including Parks, and Library Services.

2 RECOMMENDATION

2.1 The Council Executive is asked to note the performance of Culture & Leisure services for the period and the issues arising, as detailed in the attached report.

2.2 The Council Executive is asked to consider whether any further specific actions are required.

3

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3.1 No financial implications directly arising from this report.

4 THE REPORT

4.1 The attached report provides details of progress made and key issues arising from the following services:

4.2 The report also measures performance by the services against the thirty performance targets included within the Council's Performance Plan published in June 2003. Progress against targets, and the likelihood of achieving them, is assessed as either "Green" (on target); "Amber" (some difficulty expected in achieving target) or "Red" (target in danger of not being achieved).

4.3 Twenty one targets are assessed as "green" - likely to be achieved (70% of the total).

4.4 One target is assessed as "amber", and relates to the number of visits per head of population to public libraries per one thousand population. The library service was 2% below target against this annual measure, which is based upon an average of visitors in three months (April, July & November).

4.5 The eight targets that are assessed as "red" include three generic targets for cultural and leisure services. Satisfaction by local residents with the Council's cultural and recreational activities overall fell 13% below target, and was 3% lower than in the similar survey by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2000. Satisfaction by local residents with the Council's sports and leisure facilities and libraries also fell below target, but were up by 3% against the equivalent survey by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

4.6 One target is assessed as "red" for Leisure Services, relating to the number of sports pitches available to the public. The number available is two lower than the target for the year, and discussions are underway with the sitting tenant for these two pitches prior to their transfer to the relevant Town Council.

4.7 Two targets are assessed as "red" for the Authority's Library Services, relating to the percentage of library users who either found a book to borrow or found the information they were looking for. These assessments are based upon the results of the PLUS (Public Library Users Group) survey, which took place during November 2003.

4.8 Two further targets are assessed as "red" for the Authority's Heritage Services, relating to the number of visits to/usages of museums per one thousand population and the number of those visits that were in person. These results were influenced by the effect on tourism of world events in the last and previous years. Targets have been adjusted to reflect the effect of world events on international tourism, and visitor numbers have begun to recover over the last year in line with expectations.