Council performs well in last financial year

11 August 2006

Christchurch City Council met or exceeded just under 75 per cent of its service level targets in the year ending 30 June.

Among the areas where the council did well during the year were:
● Pool use: In the year, 4.1 million attendances were recorded at council pools and leisure centres, 71% above the 2.4m target. The organisation also measures the average cost (the money required from rates to provide the service above what people pay for a visit) and it was $2.92 for the year, under the target $3.05/swim. 
● Participation in Council recreation programmes: almost 130,000 attendances for the year, exceeding the target by about 44%
● Participation in Christchurch City Libraries programmes: More than 70,000 attendances, exceeding the 40,000 target by about 75%. As well, user surveying shows 93% are satisfied with the range of materials the Libraries network is providing, 96% with staff helpfulness, 94% with the facilities and the ease of finding information electronically.
● Cycle safety: 3445 year-6 pupils from 81 schools took part in the Cycle Safe programme, ahead of target by 16%
● Residents’ satisfaction: 97% of those taking part in the most recent surveys rated the city as a good or very good place to live, 91% satisfied with the value of Council support for sport and recreation (target 70%), similar proportions of people replying they are happy with the look of the city and with council events (target of 80% in both cases), 99% approval of the water supply and its reliability, 97% satisfaction with water quality and taste, 93% saying they think festivals and events contribute to their enjoyment of life in the city, 90% agreeing they have some influence on council decisions (target 65%), 89% of surveyed callers satisfied with the service they get (target 80%), 81% agreeing that the city is getting value for the money spent on swimming pools and 58% and 76% respectively of those surveyed saying they had visited a council pool or library in the past year and 94% agreeing the city’s parks and open spaces are well looked after.
● Economic: Among the Canterbury Development Corporation’s aims is to help 1200 young people a year into work or further training. It exceeded this by just under 100%.
● Parks and open spaces: Resident satisfaction with the Garden City’s parks remains high, as does their enthusiasm for assisting Council efforts in this area. The Council runs projects for volunteers and its annual aim is to attract 8000 hours of volunteer and community service effort. Five times that many hours (40,202) were contributed in the year. Over the same period, more than 10,000 children took part in the Council’s hands-on Learning Through Action environmental education field trips.
● Waste minimisation: Contractors picked up 26,300 tonnes of recyclable materials from city kerbsides (target 18,000t)

Operations and services relating to the 15.64% of targets which were not met will be addressed in the Business Excellence Framework that the council has embarked on for the first time this year.

● For the full report

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