Local authority services figures released
21/07/2005 - 14:15:51Cork City has the highest rate of rubbish going to landfill, Mayo has provided the least Traveller accommodation and Carlow has the longest public library opening hours, it emerged today.
The Department of the Environment and Local Government revealed the figures for 42 separate services provided by the 34 local authorities across the country.
The categories included the length of time taken to grant planning applications, the enforcement of litter laws, the collection rates for water charges and the number of housing repairs completed.
The service indicators reveals that 97.45% of waste in Cork City went to landfill compared to 43% in Galway City.
Mayo County Council only achieved 43% of its targets for accommodating Traveller families, while Longford County Council achieved 220% of its target.
Although the average opening time for libraries was 38.67 hours, Carlow exceeded this with an average opening time of 46 hours while Wexford had the shortest opening times with just 27 hours.
Local authorities were ordered to gather the information for 2004 after the publication of a report “Delivering Value for People – Service Indicators in Local Authorities” last year.
Minister for the Environment Dick Roche said it was the first step towards getting an accurate assessment of the work done by local authorities. He said they often did not get credit for doing essential tasks such as providing housing, water and sewerage treatment.
“We take it for granted that these things happen. But his only happens because the men and women of local government make it happen,” he said.
Mr Roche said the aim of the service indicators was to develop best practice across all the local authorities. “The point of this is not to pillory anyone who performs less than the average,” he said.
Local authorities granted planning permission for 100,000 houses last year and investigated 10,000 planning complaints, resulting in warning letters in two thirds of cases and 755 prosecutions.
Mr Roche said he was pleased with the work done by the planning department but disappointed that there were such variations in another area, the collection of no domestic water charges.
The collection rate ranged from around 93% in South Tipperary County Council to around 40% in Wicklow County Council.
“The collection of water charges is disappointing in some cases and some attention will have to be paid to that,” he said.
The part-time fire-fighters of Co Louth were the quickest to mobilise following an emergency with a response time of 3.94 minutes, compared to 6.43 minutes in Co Donegal.
Anne O’Keefe, the director of the Office of Local Authority Management, said it was very important to have a strong body of evidence about performance.
She said it was very heartening to see that 90% of motor tax applications had been dealt with within three days and that most planning offices were open for more than 30 hours a week.
Leitrim County Council dealt with 97% of its 718 planning applications for individual houses within eight weeks, while Wexford County Council only dealt with around 51% of its 2,130 planning applications within the same period.
The local authority with the highest level of planning refusals was South Dublin County Council with around 45% turned down, followed by Meath County Council with around 42% and Westmeath County Council with around 28%.
The local authorities where most planning applications were granted were Limerick City Council with around 91% followed by Roscommon County Council with around 89%, and Longford County Council with around 88%.
In relation to local authority housing, the service indicators revealed that less than 3% of houses were vacant at any one time, the average period to re-let was five weeks and 89% of rents were collected.
The County and City Managers Association said it welcomed the publication of the figures and added that it would be encouraging its members to use them to analyse their performance.
“Inevitably some results are not satisfactory. In such cases now that there is clear evidence, it is up to individual parties with the manager and the elected members working together to decide on what action to take,” said chairman Des Mahon.
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