South Ayrshire Council has published its Children and Community Annual Report 2010/11 which highlights key achievements, ongoing work and its vision for the future.
Harry Garland Executive Director of Children and Community said "We aim to make the lives of people in South Ayrshire better by listening to what people tell us, putting people at the centre of all we do and working more closely together to achieve our aims. Against the backdrop of reducing resources, our performance in 2010/11 continued to meet our very high standards and, in some cases, has been sector leading. I would like to thank staff who have worked hard to achieve this."
The key outcomes achieved include:
- Significant improvements in our school buildings.
- Record exam results for 2010/11 highest achieved for eight years.
- School exclusions are at their lowest for seven years and significantly below the national average.
- Great progress toward ensuring all our young people are confident, successful learners
- Recognition for being the leading authority for participation in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme
- Significant and high quality provision of out of school hours childcare services.
- Continued improvement in our child protection services.
- Provision of a wide range of care services to enable older people and adults to live independently in their own communities.
- Building the first new Council houses for decades – 68 modern eco friendly homes.
- Significant investment in our sports, leisure, arts and cultural facilities.
Communication and consultation with people using the services is key and a range of consultations took place with service users in 2010/11. These included over 1,000 people participating in focus groups, nearly 7,000 responding to online surveys, almost 10,000 completing questionnaires and over 1,000 taking part in telephone surveys.
Councillor McIntosh, Leader of the Council said: "The report reflects the dedication and determination of our employees to deliver the best possible service that they can now and in the future.
"We have consulted with over 21,000 service users, taken their views on board and created and delivered a high quality of service using the resources available to us. We will continue to improve services in the future to meet the needs of our communities."