Council Achievements and Performance in Spotlight

An insight into the achievements and performance of South Tyneside Council over the past year will be presented next week.

The Annual Report charts the progress the Council makes across a wide range of key areas, from children's services and housing to community safety, economic growth and environment.

The Council's new 20-year Vision was launched in 2022 with five key ambitions for residents to be financially secure; healthy and well; connected to jobs; and part of strong communities. Underpinning all of this was a commitment to target support to make things fairer.

Good progress is being made across all five ambitions, although there is still much work to be done.

Action taken to help people be more financially secure includes £8.5m secured by the Welfare Support Team for residents, and £125k support to local foodbanks. The Borough's network of Welcoming Places hosted 1,326 visits and almost 13,000 Holiday, Activities and Food Places were delivered. The Council also staged the North East's first ever child poverty summit, bringing together more than 100 representatives from across the region.

A range of initiatives are being delivered to help keep people healthy and well, with work almost complete on two specialist housing developments for adults with learning disabilities and complex care needs, as well as an extra care development in Hebburn to allow people to live independently for longer. Improvements are being delivered across Children's Services too, with three Ofsted visits last year recognising ongoing progress and three new children's homes under development.

In a bid to connect more people to local jobs, the Council continues to push forward on regeneration projects that create the environment for business growth and job creation. With 96% of primary schools, 88% of secondary schools and 100% of special schools rated 'good' by Ofsted, and a wide-ranging programme of employment and skills initiatives, from new careers support in schools to jobs fairs and accelerated coding bootcamps, the council is helping get local people of all ages into careers in local strength sectors.

The council's ongoing work to cut carbon emissions and increase renewable energy capacity has been recognised, with the Viking Energy Network Jarrow scooping two prestigious awards this year. Six Green Flags were awarded to parks across the borough, and nearly 6.5 million visitors generated £417m in benefits for the local economy.

Cllr Tracey Dixon, Leader of South Tyneside Council, said: "The Annual Report updates residents on all the investment, activities, projects and services we delivered over the last year, as well as identifying areas for future development and improvement.

"There were some key achievements and important milestones last year, including the transfer of our housing services back to council control, and I'm confident this will provide the best outcomes for tenants across the borough.

"I'm also really proud that we hosted the region's first ever Child Poverty Summit. We know that almost a third of our children living in poverty, and as well as dealing with the impact of poverty, we need to address the underlying causes, and this will continue to be a priority for us, as it is regionally and nationally. Together we can make a difference.

"We've already got a number of exciting events in the pipeline this year, including a Climate Summit in Spring.

"There will undoubtedly be challenges but we will continue to tackle them head on and deliver on the things that matter to our residents."

The Annual Report will be presented at a meeting of Borough Council next Thursday (23 Jan).