North Lanarkshire Council has set out how it and its partners have performed against their targets in the last year in their performance reports for 2005/06.

At the event in Motherwell Concert Hall, the Chief Executive Gavin Whitefield and Council Leader and Chair of North Lanarkshire Partnership, Councillor Jim McCabe, gave a presentation on the achievements of the council and the partnership across all aspects of their work.

The council and the partnership outline their long-term priorities and objectives in their Corporate Plan and Community Plan respectively, both of which span four years. Each year they produce plans for the work they will undertake towards those objectives. And to monitor their progress, both organisations publish annual performance reports that include information on developments and progress.

Councillor Jim McCabe introduced the reports saying:

"Thanks to the commitment of our workforce and elected members, the council has delivered on almost all of our key targets. For example, our £150 million public private partnership, Education 2010, is well underway. In the last year, we opened another shared campus school, started work on an additional nine schools and continued refurbishment of three secondary schools. We have also further developed more personalised care services for older people and other vulnerable people, made our communities safer by implementing our Antisocial Behaviour Strategy and made significant improvements to our town centres.

"North Lanarkshire Partnership has also continued to make excellent progress to better join up services and drive forward programmes which support the economic, environmental and social regeneration of the area. In particular, the introduction of the six local area partnerships is an extremely welcome development which will take our partnership working to a more local level.

"Both reports show the real progress that the council and its partners are making to deliver quality services and facilities that meet the needs of local people and communities."

Among the achievements highlighted in the reports are:

• Supporting the creation of 198 new jobs through business support programmes and providing 30 skill seeker places and 10 modern apprenticeships for young people within the council;
• Providing support and training to the Credit Union Forum, giving people access to affordable financial services;
• Improving the prospects of our young people with over 1,000 pupils participating in vocational education aimed at developing skills for emerging job opportunities, and surpassing our targets for adult numeracy and literacy with over 2,500 learners taking part in programmes;
• Proving daily free fruit to over 2,700 nursery school children from our most deprived areas, and establishing assisted living technology to help people with complex care needs to live independently;
• Reducing the number of households living in fuel poverty by investing in energy efficiency measures, and tackling anti-social behaviour by increasing litter notices by 87% and dog fouling notices by 43%;
• Expanding our Twenty's Plenty speed reduction campaign by introducing mandatory limits in four areas;
• Installing safety and security equipment in over 4,400 homes; and
• Improving the range of services available through our customer contact centre and set up six Local Area Partnerships to lead and co-ordinate the resources of public agencies and work closely with local communities.

Gavin Whitefield, Chief Executive, said:

"As well as reporting the achievements that the council has made over the last year, our performance report also details our performance against a range of statutory indicators that measure various aspects of our work. Out of the total 54 indicators that we monitor, we have made an improvement in 31, including 25 that also improved the previous year and six that had dipped the year before. The remaining 23 indicators have not shown any progress, so we are focussing our attention in these areas to identify ways of improving these services."

Guests at the launch event enjoyed a performance by North Lanarkshire Schools' Pipe Band. The band has developed a reputation as one of the best school bands in Scotland, performing at a number of competitions and events.

During the launch event, the council announced the winners of its annual corporate award scheme. The awards recognise the projects that best exemplify each of the council's seven priority themes. The 2006 winners in each category are:

• Stimulating business and the economy - West of Scotland Loan Fund, which provides gap funding for new and existing small to medium sized companies;
• Promoting social inclusion - Working for Families' Fund, which brings together childcare and economic development for lone parents, those on low incomes and vulnerable families;
• Encouraging lifelong learning - I-Learn TV, a project that delivers lifelong learning opportunities to unemployed people, lone parents, elderly people, and housebound people through their digital televisions;
• Promoting health, well-being and care - Calder Primary School's parent and child cookery class, which offered cookery classes as part of their campaign to change pupils' eating habits;
• Improving housing and the environment - Eastfield regeneration project, a multi-agency project that increased the desirability of Eastfield in Harthill by turning it into a pleasant, safe environment;
• Promoting community safety and development - the Keeping our Young People Safe initiative, that carries out retrospective disclosure checks on employees working with children; and
• Developing the organisation - Risk and insurance - business change and beyond, a project that improved the efficiency and simplicity of this process for stakeholders and improved the quality and value for the council.

The performance reports are available by calling 01698 302376.