(a)

over the last 12 months Heritage and Arts had focussed on a step change in the delivery of the highest quality events and cultural programme for the city, which included – 

?

bidding for the United Kingdom City of Culture;

?

sixteen major events including the Route des Princes;

?

the city’s most successful marketing and PR campaign reaching 120m people and generating £2.2m of advertising value; this included advertising the national fireworks competition on  the ‘One Show’;

(b)

the focus over the next 12 months for Heritage and Arts, would include -

?

the development of the History Centre (bidding for £12m of Heritage Lottery Funding) and a cultural road map to Mayflower 2020 (working with the Culture Board);

?

60^th anniversary of D-Day; 100^th Anniversary World War 1 and the 350^th anniversary of the Royal Marines;

(c)

the Sports Development Unit had played a significant role in developing and promoting sport opportunities across the city and currently delivered a number of national initiatives which included Sportivate, summer arts college, breeze cycling and Mars just play football; key achievements of the past 12 months included –

?

Quest and Customer Service Excellence accreditation;

?

twenty per cent of sports development attendances were from people from deprived neighbourhoods;

?

£200k of external funding brought into the city through the Unit’s support;

(d)

work being undertaken within the library service which included –

?

the Plan for Libraries (the service’s strategic plan) would outline the foundations of the service’s development over the next three years and would include an action plan;

?

discussions had commenced relating to how the History Centre would relate to the collections of rare books and historical materials;

?

over 4000 children and young people had taken part in this year’s national summer reading challenge (Creepy House);

?

a sum of £15,000 had been given to the service to increase the amount of information it provided to businesses in the city;

(e)

work currently being undertaken with Customer Services, which included –

Call Centre

?

25,000 calls and 2,500 emails per month;

?

95 per cent answer rate;

?

80 per cent of calls answered in 20 seconds;

First Stop

?

3,000 visitors per month;

?

98 per cent customer satisfaction level;

Transaction Centre

?

88.6 per cent of invoices paid within 30 days;

?

69.8 per cent of invoices to small and medium enterprises were paid within 15 days;

(f)

key achievements in Customer Services included -

?

fourth year in achieving Customer Service Excellence;

?

two shortlisted finalists in South West Contact Centre Forum Awards and PCC Star Awards;

(g)

work currently being undertaken in HR which included the -

?

recruitment of 74 apprentices;

?

reduction in sickness to 8.22 days per full time equivalent post (target set at 8.49 days);

(h)

work currently being undertaken in Risk and Insurance/Legal Services, which included -

?

the introduction of the claims portal;

?

the successful response by Emergency Operations to the Short Sermon Exercise;

(i)

work currently being undertaken in Electoral Services, which included -

?

a corporate campaign to promote electoral registration;

?

the annual preparation of Register of Electors;

?

a review of polling districts, places and stations;

(j)

work currently being undertaken in Registration Services,which  included -

?

improvement of the environment at the Register Office to celebrate life events;

?

celebratory ceremonies in a number of locations around the city;

?

provision of an online certificate application;

(k)

work currently being undertaken in ICT, included -

?

the roll out of Lync, Win 7, hot desking, smart meeting rooms and video conferencing to over 70 sites;

?

the delivery of public health integration at Windsor House which involved 184 staff.

(l)

the Deputy Leader undertook to look into the provision of a telephone in the scrutiny resource room;

(m)

in September 2013 there had been 2.5 per cent of abandoned calls relating to adult social care issues; (the total percentage of abandoned calls was 3 per cent, which was low in terms of industry standards);

(n)

with regard to the paperless office initiative, which had been trialled by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board, the Windows 8 tablet was currently being reviewed;

(o)

there were currently 30 vacancies for apprentices and it was anticipated that additional apprentices would be recruited to assist with the transformation programme;

(p)

Board members would be advised whether the call centre could return abandoned calls relating to Adult Social Care.