Council publishes its annual self assessment report
The annual self assessment report details how we’ve performed in meeting our objectives over the past year.
The report highlights our key achievements over the past twelve months, which includes:
- Increased the choice available to vulnerable adult residents to support and improve their well-being through the ‘Your Choice’ initiative. This saw us transitioning eleven domiciliary care agencies into the initiative with 235 citizens supported by 3700 hours of outcome focussed care and support at home each week. Our 24/7 Falls Response Service has responded to over 500 falls since service its inception in October 2022, reducing attendances to Accident & Emergency by 440 with an estimated saving of £547K to the Health Board.
- Supported community led projects through nearly £180K of Strong Communities Fund, which has benefitted communities.
- Achieved the Silver Youth Work Quality Mark in recognition of high quality and impactful provision for young people.
- Increased capacity of Welsh medium education with an additional 210 primary places at the new Barry waterfront development (Ysgol Sant Baruc) and an additional 299 secondary places at Ysgol Gymraeg Bro Morgannwg.
- Delivered an ambitious project to reduce homelessness through effective tenant and accommodation support which saw very few incidences of rough sleeping in the Vale of Glamorgan.
- Strengthened community safety through full replacement of the Council’s CCTV system and operational arrangements.
- Worked collaboratively to achieve Bronze Sustainable Food Places status for the Vale.
- Successfully secured £600K of funding for Bus Stop improvements across the Vale of Glamorgan to encourage active travel.
- Improved waste facilities by opening a new Resource Recovery Facility to process source separated recycling material, a new reuse shop, extended the rollout out of new recycling arrangements and increased the range of kerbside recyclables to increase citizen participation and meet national recycling targets.
- Ensured 100% of our electricity was purchased from renewable sources to enable us to achieve our carbon reduction commitments.
- Joined a Procurement Shared Service arrangement with Cardiff, Monmouthshire and Torfaen Councils to strengthen service resilience and maximise opportunities to achieve savings through procurement with a specific focus on social value. Carbon reduction and supporting local employment.
- Worked with our communities and the third sector on a range of different projects, including the mobilisation and delivery of warm spaces, food support, tackling loneliness and isolation and used these as an opportunity to engage on other topics which will further strengthen our working relationships.
- Spent £5,859M of Section 106 developer contributions on enhancements to public transport, walking and cycling networks, new school places, public open space and public art enhancements, up on 2021/22 figure of £5.576M.
- The equivalent of about 44 football pitches of parks, open spaces and highway land was sown with wildflowers or maintained as naturalised area in line with our commitment to enhance biodiversity.
- Installed an additional 80 Electric Vehicle Charging Points on Council premises and 36 public Electric Vehicle charging points.
- Engaged with our communities to develop Placemaking plans for our four main towns and a Local Energy Plan as part of supporting our communities and investing in our regeneration assets.
- Created new services to support our response to the Cost of Living Crisis. Responded to over 8,000 calls on our Cost of Living support line and over 10,000 applications for financial support.
- Achieved Defence Employers Recognition Scheme Gold Award in recognition of the positive work undertaken to support veterans and armed forces families.
- 1,418 people accessed our One Stop shop for support on a wide range of housing related issues with interventions demonstrating positive outcomes for service users.
- Delivered 30+ events in collaboration with public, private and voluntary organisations, supporting the Vale economy and raising the profile of the Vale as an events destination.
- 130 partners were involved in delivering 147 activities in 946 sessions in 23 areas of the Vale, achieving over 19,500 participations with 99% satisfaction with activities. This is in line with our commitment to increase opportunities for play and participation in physical activity in communities. 433 children with disabilities and 477 children with additional learning needs participated in the activities.
- Delivered two SMART houses, a third is near completion and a further 6 planned for 2024/25, further supporting independent living and enhancing citizen well-being.
- Increased our Well-being offer in libraries with 934 events attracting 15,459 participants.
The aim of the self-assessment report is to demonstrate to Welsh Government, our Regulators, Vale of Glamorgan citizens and other stakeholders how we are performing, that we are making decisions in an open way, and effectively using our money and other resources to deliver our Annual Delivery Plan commitments and contribute to the national Well-being goals.
Alongside the findings from our self-assessment, we have also engaged with key stakeholders, including the public throughout the year, to ask them what they think about our performance and the areas we need to focus on in the coming year.
Together these will inform our areas for further focus which will be reflected in the Council’s Annual Delivery Plan for 2024/25. As in the previous year’s Annual Delivery Plan, there is continued emphasis on our three critical challenges which many actions in the plan will contribute to. These challenges are:
- Organisational Resilience (our finances, people and assets) – ensuring that we can continue to adapt and provide our services despite the financial pressures and workforce challenges that we and many of our partner organisations face.
- Cost of Living Crisis – supporting our residents, local organisations and business in the face of rising costs in particular around energy, food and housing.
- Climate and Nature Emergencies – responding to the climate and nature emergencies and delivering the commitments in our Climate Challenge Plan.
We are currently consulting on the draft Annual Delivery Plan, which will be published in March 2024. Please visit: Annual Delivery Plan 2024-25 | Participate Vale (valeofglamorgan.gov.uk)
For more information on the Self-Assessment Report, please read the full report.