Agenda item

The salient points from the report were presented by EWalker.

Sarah Stefano had been appointed Team Leader for Environmental Health, beginning her role on 31^st January 2021 and replacing her predecessor Paul O’Day.

The team had continued to support COVID-19 related tasks, with 320 self-isolation checks carried out in January, along with other local work to aid transition to the Living with COVID plan.  Test and Trace officers had however transferred to the Partnerships team to assist with vaccination planning and support.

Work was undertaken to meet targets for the food safety recovery plan presented in October 2021.  New contractors had been brought in to deal with the pandemic-related backlog.  A steady flow of new food business requests was being received and work was being done in relation to pest-related closures.

Rebecca Connelly had won the Performance Award for her outstanding contribution to setting up and running a COVID-19 test and trace service, and her instrumental role in designing a food safety recovery plan amid the pandemic.

The title of Health and Safety Champion was awarded to Chris Connelly of Clean, Safe and Green after his considerable efforts in this area.

Russel Hamm was a finalist for a Performance Award for his work on safety systems throughout the pandemic.

The Operations team had been busy throughout Q1, securing an animal welfare warrant and successfully rehoming several animals.

Following the presentation to the Animal Welfare service of another Golden Pawprint award to the Animal Welfare service, MP Gagan Mohindra had visited and had been provided a presentation by lead officer Rachel Smith. 

9 fixed penalty notices had been served for fly-tipping in Q4, and 4 abandoned vehicles removed.  There were 3 outstanding warrants in place for defendants who had failed to appear in court, being regularly pursued in conjunction with four different police forces.

On Monday 24^th March, 9 people were ordered to pay fines for littering offences and breaching public space protection orders, after failure to pay fixed penalty notices.  These had been the first prosecutions of this kind issued by the Council.

Ben Stephens was the finalist for the Innovation Award for an innovative approach leading to engagement third-party enforcement organisation.

The Neighbourhood Delivery service were finalists for Team of the Year for 2021.

The report was noted, and the floor was then opened for questions.

EWalker was congratulated for her Excellence in Leadership Award in 2021.

A question was raised regarding the Corporate Health & Safety Team and reporting of accidents.  Clarity was requested on the statistics provided, particularly in relation to apparent duplication of some figures.  In response, EWalker clarified that the apparent duplications between slips, trips and falls and strike by object were different incidents.  The numbers appeared higher than in previous years due to an increased number of types of incidents now recorded.  EWalker also agreed to clarify some differences in figures between slips, trips and falls and strikes by object.

Cllr England, in relation to the figure of 41% of noise cases closed within 60 days, asked whether the 41% represented the easiest cases to close and what happened with the other 59%.  EWalker responded that several senior individuals were out of the office, so the majority of the remaining 59% had not yet been closed for administrative reasons, but that operationally in many cases nothing more remained to be done.

Cllr Hearn asked how any vacancies the department had currently.  EWalker responded that there was one vacancy in the permanent establishment and 4 in the temporary establishment.

The Chair thanked all those officers having received awards for their contributions.