The Council’s Annual Corporate Performance Report will be presented at the meeting of Cabinet on Monday 8 July 2024.
The report highlights the key challenges and achievements between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024.
The year 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of Calderdale and is a time to review the progress made to Vision 2024.
The Vision underpins the Council’s strategic priorities: to reduce inequalities, develop thriving towns and places and take climate action to improve the lives of residents.
The Council continues to face significant challenges, with financial pressure on its budget and from increased demand for services, particularly for Adults’ and Children’s Social Care. The cost of living is continuing to have an impact on local residents and businesses.
Calderdale Council’s Director of Resources and Transformation, Becky McIntyre said:
“In 2024 there is much to celebrate, as we mark our 50th birthday as a Council, and enjoy CultureDale, our Year of Culture. Although we cannot ignore the continued and very real pressures which the Council and our residents currently face, there has been significant progress in many areas for which we can feel very proud.
“Our Annual Corporate Performance Report gives the borough many things to applaud, whilst also highlighting where we need to improve and where we can focus our efforts to tackle the key issues affecting local people.”
The Annual Corporate report shows strong Council performance overall in the past 12 months, with some areas for improvement.
The report compares the Council’s progress with other local authority areas and some of the main achievements in the last year include:
- Following an Ofsted inspection in February 2024, Children and Young People’s Services is rated ‘good’ in all areas.
- In Calderdale schools, progress rates in Key Stage 2 (KS2) have improved significantly since 2019 in areas of reading, writing and mathematics, nearing or exceeding national indicators on several measures in recent years.
- The Care Quality Commission has introduced an inspection regime for local authorities’ Adult Social Care services. The Council has made good progress in its performance on safeguarding, meeting the 95% target for safeguarding enquiries ending with risks reduced or removed.
- The health of Calderdale’s children is a priority for the Council, to make sure they have a good start in life. One measure of this is the number of reception age children who have a healthy weight, which this year continues to perform significantly higher than the national average.
- Criminal activity has a negative effect on residents and businesses. The Council is working with West Yorkshire Police and other partners to tackle this as a priority and there is encouraging evidence of improvement with a reduction in reported instances of serious crime.
Areas of the Council which experienced challenging performance during 2023/24 and are benefitting from further support include:
- An increasing rate of Children Looked After and children on a Child Protection plan since 2019/20. The Council has a robust multi-agency approach to identify and provide early help and intervention.
- The rate of unemployment across Calderdale has fluctuated this year with early positive trends being reversed more recently. Several wards have experienced increases in the number of residents claiming unemployment related benefits. The Council will continue to work with partners to deliver the Anti-Poverty Action Plan to tackle poverty and inequalities.
- The condition of Calderdale’s road network has deteriorated with increasing numbers of potholes and road defects. The 2023/24 data for unclassified roads shows 32% require maintenance, an increase from 18% in the previous year. The Council is prioritising maintenance work on unclassified roads this year, with seven gangs (normally three) repairing potholes on the network.
The Council publishes all performance data on its open data platform, Calderdale Data Works: https://dataworks.calderdale.gov.uk.
Calderdale Council’s Cabinet meeting is on Monday 8 July at Halifax Town Hall from 4pm. The meeting can also be viewed online at https://calderdale.public-i.tv/core/portal/home(external link)