Councilor Heather Anderson
Progress has been made on a number of outcomes set out in Dundee City Council’s Neighborhood Services Service Plan 2021-2024, councilors heard last night.
Members of the Neighborhood Service Committee were updated and discussed the service plan at a meeting last night.
The Neighborhood Services Service Plan has eleven strategic priorities and is responsible for a wide range of organized functions in the service areas of housing and communities, community safety and protection, environment and services of construction.
Key results that were achieved including anti-social behavior reporting for the first 6 months of 2021/22 saw a reduction of 17% over 2018/19 and 2019/20, the percentage of rentals maintained in Dundee City was the higher in Scotland, with a figure of 96.37% for the year to the end of September 2021 above the national average of 90.89%.
Likewise, community centers across the city provided crisis support to communities and support to food pantries during the Covid-19 lockdown period, in line with national guidelines at the time. Centers still provide vital resources to communities that have more residents than expected.
Despite the pandemic, the number of youth attending diversionary learning programs has continued to rise. At the same time, vital adult learning support such as Literacies & ESOL has continued throughout the pandemic and offered individual support to learners.
The Year 2 review of the Rapid Transition to Relocation Plan has been completed and the annual progress report has been submitted to the Scottish Government and Neighborhood Services Committee.
The Be Proud of Your City campaign was reviewed in 2021/22, with a renewed action plan developed and to be continued in 2022/24. Similarly, the new Baldovie Energy from Waste (EfW) MEB facility has been fully commissioned and is operational, a key step in ensuring Dundee now has a long-term residual waste treatment solution.
A wide range of waste management actions, including route redevelopment, fleet review and the revised internal waste management project schedule, all met pre-determined deadlines.
Dundee’s LEZ scheme was also submitted to Transport Scotland and Scottish Ministers in February 2022 and approved in May 2022 before being introduced on schedule on May 30, 2022.
Progress in achieving environmental standards has been recognized by the national Green Flag and Scotland’s Beach Awards.
Neighborhood Services Manager Councilor Heather Anderson said: ‘This update shows the breadth and depth of the work being done across the service and the continued hard work that has been done by staff to provide many vital resident services during the pandemic.
“Despite the challenges of the pandemic and closures, Community Learning and Development (CLD) staff have continued to support adult and youth learning programs using a blended approach to delivery under very difficult circumstances. .”
She added, “Support from CLD staff and community empowerment teams has also led to the formation of new community collectives in each neighborhood of the city to broaden the base of participation in community planning.
“However, while there are many strengths to this plan, including maintaining such an impressive rental level throughout this difficult period, we are also fully aware that there are areas where performance needs improvement. Recovering from the impact of Covid-19 on key services is now our priority.
