Dundee City Council's performance measured

Published

18th April 2019

Dundee City Council’s success in implementing the living wage and helping unemployed people back to work are just two areas highlighted in a report on the local authority’s performance.

The policy & resources committee meeting on Monday April 22 will consider analysis of the Local Government Benchmarking Framework Performance Indicators for 2017-18.

In the report, measures covering council service areas are detailed and compared with similar councils across Scotland, based on factors like deprivation and urban density.

Under Dundee City Council’s fair work and enterprise projects, it is shown that the city helps more unemployed people back into work on council funded programmes than the average of other urban areas.

Dundee City Council now has less people earning under the living wage than the average of other cities.

The city council spends more on procurement with local companies than the average of the other urban areas across Scotland.

Dundee has the fastest response to housing repairs than other urban areas.

The council has also reduced support costs as percentage of total expenditure to 3.4 %, compared with the national average of 4.4%, so more funds area available for front line services.

Committee convener and council leader Councillor John Alexander said: “While there are improvements across many of the areas of this report, we are certainly not complacent and are well aware that there are aspects of our performance that need to be enhanced.”

“We are working hard and we have action plans in place for all of these.

“Our council plan and the wider city plan outlines our ambitions to make the city a better place for everyone.

 “I am keen that attainment can rise and that our pupils are fully prepared to take on the challenges and opportunities presented to them after they leave school.

“We are looking at closing the attainment gap further and I am impressed by commitment of our teachers and school staff to make this happen.

“The report also outlines how we are looking to get more looked after children placed locally rather than outside of the city. This makes a huge difference for them and I want to see more of our looked after children progress to a brighter future

“These indicators give us a chance to see how far we have travelled and give us direction for the council going forward.”

Dundee City Council

Dundee draws skilled workers from a 60-minute catchment population of 640,000 and has a local population of over 140,000. The availability of a large pool of highly skilled labour is a key feature in the Dundee economy. Flexibility in the labour force is currently more prevalent in Dundee than in Scotland as a whole. All forms of labour market flexibility - part-time, temporary employment, self-employment and shift work - are widely operational within the city. Labour force stability in the city is excellent, enabling companies to plan with confidence. Labour turnover levels are less than 5% and absenteeism averages 2%.

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