South Wales Evening Post - 12 March 2007
Swansea Council's education department is struggling to meet performance targets.
While the council is hitting 63 per cent of its targets, the education department has managed to hit just 36 per cent. It means almost two thirds of education targets are being missed.
Performance indicators are used by the council to check it is doing its job properly. Every department has a number of targets to meet - from the time it takes to carry out emergency repairs to council houses, to the number of pupils expelled from schools.
There are a total 127 indicators that are updated every three months. The latest figures show that the total number of indicators being hit has fallen by three per cent on the previous figures.
The council's director of education, Richard Parry, said the poor performance was likely to pick up.
He said: "The current term results appear to be generally poorer than recent outcome, but experience has shown that as most of these are reported annually, the impact of differences in each term iron themselves out in the annual reporting."
Other departments show improvements and Swansea Council officials have welcomed better performances for the environment department. The latest figures show the worst graffiti in the city is being cleaned up within seven days and almost nine in ten abandoned cars are removed within 24 hours.
The time taken to fix faulty street lights is also improving, according to the latest figures.
Mary Jones, cabinet member for top performance, said: "The news on how the council is prioritising effort to make our streets feel cleaner and safer by banishing graffiti, damaged pavements and abandoned cars as quickly as possible will be welcomed by residents.
"It's a testimony to the hard work of council staff who clearly take pride in doing a good job for their communities."
