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Introduction
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Our Corporate Leadership Team
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Tayside Contracts - Who We Are, and What We Do
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Business Plan-on-a-page
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Our 5C’s
Confidence, Trust and Relationships
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Commercial Approach
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Collaboration and Sharing
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Continuous Improvement and Performance
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Communities, Councils and Customers
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Summary of KPI’s and Targets
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Introduction Thank you for taking the time read our Annual Performance Report. This report summarises the work undertaken across all Tayside Contracts’ activities during 2021/22, to deliver the best possible services, and achieve the best possible outcomes, for the communities of Tayside. We are proud of what we do, and the report presents us with an opportunity to celebrate our successes, and highlights our major strengths, whilst also reflecting on those areas where we need to make further improvements. The period covered in the report represents one of the most extraordinary times in global history, and our activities have understandably been shaped by the response to COVID19. Our people have had to be incredibly flexible, dedicated and agile, as we have delivered our vital services, through a series of further lockdowns, and everchanging restrictions, which only really lifted towards the end of this reporting period. This has meant that some of our original aspirations for the year had to be deferred. Therefore, much of our performance reporting in this document relates to the extensive COVID- enforced changes in our service delivery, during this unique period. We are proud that our people in Tayside Contracts have worked alongside our constituent Councils, communities, suppliers, Trade Unions and partners to support each other and the people of
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Tayside to fulfil our mission of ‘Enhancing our Communities Through Excellent Services’. The economic impact of the pandemic, and the subsequent cost of living crisis, will be felt by all of us for many years. In common with our constituent Councils, Tayside Contracts will not be immune from the significant financial constraints public services will be under, as the country recovers from record financial borrowing levels, and as we respond to extreme increases in costs - in what was already a very challenging financial climate for public services. Therefore, we are under pressure not only to sustain the quality of our current service delivery, but to meet ever increasing demands, improve our performance, and deliver best value for our community. To simply remain sustainable, we need even more commercial activities, as well as seeking out and developing new and innovative ways to deliver our services, through increased collaborations with our constituent Councils, and with other partners, across the public and private sector. To achieve this, teamwork is essential, and we would like to thank members of the Tayside Contracts Joint Committee, colleagues from our three constituent Councils, our affiliated Trade Unions, and our selfless and hardworking people within Tayside Contracts for their part in working together to deliver the actions contained in this Annual Performance Report and helping to shape the future success of Tayside Contracts.
We have set out our 2021/22 achievements under the ‘5C themes’ of the current 2021/24 Business Plan. These themes are:
Confidence, Trust and Relationships Commercial Approach Collaboration and Sharing Continuous Improvement and Performance Communities, Councils and Customers
Councillor Brenda Durno Convener of Tayside Contracts
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Keith McNamara Managing Director
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Our Corporate Leadership Team
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Who We Are and What We Do Who We Are For the past 26 years, Tayside Contracts has been the collaborative and commercial operating arm for the three Councils in Tayside (our constituent Councils): Angus Council Dundee City Council Perth & Kinross Council
We provide essential public services to the 400,000 residents in Tayside on behalf of the three Councils.
We currently employ 3,075 people
Our annual Turnover is around £89m
We are not a private company, and we are not an independent legal entity. We are governed by a Joint Committee of 18 Elected Members from the three Councils.
What We Do We are very proud of what we do in Tayside Contracts; We are the largest civil engineering construction organisation in Tayside carrying out £42 million of road repairs, maintenance and construction, winter maintenance, and street lighting improvements each year.
We are also Tayside’s largest catering organisation – serving over 6.5 million meals every year to schools and community customers – that’s 30,000 meals each day.
Our Facilities Management team keep over 400 buildings clean and well maintained and help ensure all the occupants are safe.
Our School Crossing Patrollers help to keep the children of Tayside safe when travelling to and from the 175 schools in Tayside.
During the winter we treat over 355,000 kilometres of roads, to protect the travelling public
We operate a fleet of 600 Tayside Contracts vehicles and plant. Through the Angus Fleet Partnership, we also manage and maintain a further 370 vehicles and plant on behalf of Angus Council.
Our Quarry at Collace in Perthshire produces over 110,000 tonnes of coated and dry roadstone materials each year, for use in keeping Tayside’s roads well maintained.
We have 4 recycling depots strategically placed within the Tayside area, ensuring waste from our construction activities is reprocessed into saleable products.
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All of these activities are supported by our highly professional Human Resources, Safety and Training, IT, Finance, Communications, Equalities and Business Support teams – who are invaluable to our success.
We operate as a business and carry out work for other public bodies, private firms and the wider public. Every pound we make through our commercial activities is reinvested in our public services and local communities. By doing what we do and making sure we provide high quality and cost-effective services, we are enhancing the communities of Tayside. To view a short video on who we are and what we do, click here
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Confidence, Trust and Relationships ‘Proud of what we do, chosen for how we do it’
Tayside Contracts can only survive and thrive if we have the strongest possible relationship of transparency, honesty, mutual respect and trust with the Elected Members and officers of our constituent Councils. We rely on Councils to trust us to deliver shared services on their behalf, based on their confidence in our ability to deliver excellent services. Our Vision is to grow our organisation by taking on greater business opportunities beyond the Councils in Tayside. Therefore, we also want these other prospective customers to choose Tayside Contracts, for how we do things - for anticipating their needs, providing high quality services, and delivering best value for them.
Here are some of our highlights during 2021/22: 2021/22 was another successful year in maintaining continued financial sustainability - delivering efficiency savings and returning higher than budgeted surpluses. For the year 2021/22, we returned a surplus of £1.797m, which was shared between our three constituent Councils. We have developed positive trust and confidence through the successful Roads Maintenance Partnerships in both Dundee City and Perth & Kinross, where we share Partnership Managers, who report jointly to both Tayside Contracts and the Councils. An exciting further development in partnership working took place in 2021/22 when Angus Council joined our Street Lightning Partnership. This partnership now includes all three Councils, so this one team provides an effective and integrated service across all of Tayside. The strong working relationship between Angus Council colleagues and our vehicle workshop maintenance staff is vital as we provide the Council’s Fleet Maintenance Service, keeping their staff on the move - even more so during extreme pressures of the COVID pandemic. The success of this partnership can be demonstrated by Angus Council agreeing to an extension of the Agreement for Tayside Contracts to provide this service by a further 2 years. Formal Partnering Agreements are in place with each of the three Councils for the delivery of Facilities Management services. A recent example of the benefits of partnering was the close working relationships with the Councils’ Education Services, which ensured that Tayside contracts staff were able to
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work in a remarkably agile way in responding to the many variations to Education, Catering and Facilities Management services, to keep school staff and pupils safe during the multiple changing phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. We worked with Elected Members, within the Joint Committee to identify the key areas of our activities, where they looked for further information and more detailed reassurance of our effectiveness. We explore these subjects through a programme of shared development sessions - including developing our Business Plan, and Climate Change Plan, as well as engagement on supporting local food producers. In response to requests from Elected Members, we developed information and induction materials for Joint Committee members, to support them in their work, and to prepare for potential new Members, following the 2022 Local Government Election. This was welcomed by Elected Members:
'I just wanted to give you all a massive congratulations on that induction pack. We have sat through hours of induction over the past month and the TC one is fantastic. Engaging, interesting, clear and has enough to help you delve deeper. I will certainly keep it handy for reference. Ticks all the boxes for me. Well Done.' Perth & Kinross Elected Member
Whilst covid restrictions has delayed Joint Committee Members visiting our new state of the art Central Production Unit at Tay cuisine in person - we did the next best thing - a virtual tour! We produced a video which gave Members a feel for how impressive the facility is and the chance to hear directly from the key players who made it possible and who will ensure that Tay Cuisine becomes not just a local flagship but reaches beyond the boundaries of Tayside to deliver costefficient, healthy, appetising school, nursery and community meals to and expanding customer base. Click on the image adjacent to view the virtual tour and interviews.
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We build confidence and trust in our services through our participation in national benchmarking exercise such as APSE (Association of Public Service Excellence) performance networks, the largest voluntary public sector benchmarking service across the UK, which is used by over 200 local authorities We also benchmark with other organisations to learn about areas we can improve; and we celebrate our successes through the award nominations we receive. 2021/22 was another successful year for Tayside Contracts:
In partnership with Dundee City Council, our Dundee Roads Maintenance Partnership (DRMP) team were finalists in the UK national Highways Awards 2021 within the category of Award for the Best Use of New Technology in the Highways Industry.
Through this initiative, significant improvements maintenance performance have been achieved for the road user and the community, including. ‘Like for like’ defects repaired quicker and to the same service standard. Reduction in service failures Additional capacity has been created allowing more first-time permanent pothole repairs to be completed
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Christina Roberts, past Convenor of Tayside Contracts Joint Committee said,
‘The groundwork carried out by Dundee City Council and Tayside Contracts (DRMP) and the software supplier WDM could and arguably should pave the way for other local authorities to adopt this technology for their own benefit. Dundee City Council and Tayside Contracts has successfully integrated mobile technology for use in all routine and reactive works, from defect identification to on site completion of repairs.’
We were also delighted that Kingspark & St Paul’s Academy were shortlisted as finalists in the ASSIST FM - Outstanding Contribution to Cleaning Award 2021. The videos showcasing these excellent teams can be viewed here:
Confidence amongst our elected members and Council colleagues in our activities is heavily influenced by what our customers and communities say about us. Here is a flavour of some of our feedback:
'Tell you something, whoever the council got to do Necessity Brae, Perth, should get the contract to do all the roads. Clean, quick, no fuss, minor disruption, and the job looks great. Necessity Brae was done in half the expected time, great work and managing of expectations. Please pass on thanks and congratulations to everyone involved.'
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'We are emailing to say how pleased we are with the road resurfacing which is just being completed at Albany Road Dundee. We would also like you to pass on our thanks to the Tayside Contracts team who were so approachable and helpful in improving the camber on the road by the entrance to our driveway. We are now able to get our cars in without grounding them on the pavement.'
'We approached your organisation for help regarding the loan of extra shovels as we had run out during this period of winter and without hesitation you provided them. So, we just wanted to say thank you' Scottish Ambulance Service
'We have been told that on Tuesday 11th February during the period of significant inclement weather over 97% of those invited to their vaccination were able to attend across Tayside. This is in no small part due to the efforts of your teams.' Angus Vaccination Centres
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Next steps: We are reviewing our regular feedback and evaluation of Tayside Contracts performance to ensure we provide the right performance information, at the right time and in the right format, for Joint Committee members, the Governance and Strategy Group, our Council partners, and our citizens
Our plans to establish a shared performance indicator dashboard has had to be reprioritised due to pandemic related priorities. This platform will aim to give Elected Members, Councils and communities reassurance on our performance, as well as showing our accountability for making improvements, where performance was less than desired. This work is being progressed during 2022/23
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The financial challenges facing the Councils and Tayside Contracts are significant, and we are working with Councils on a shared development of transformational actions that maximise the delivery of service, whilst minimising costs. We are taking forward the outcomes from a workshop on Roads Maintenance, and will be taking the same approach with Facilities Services.
Commercial Approach 'Business head, community heart’' The need for Tayside Contracts to extend our commercial approach is more vital than ever. We recognise that increasing our commercial income protects us from making savings in jobs and services. This safeguards public services from declining funding experienced in recent years, and likely to continue, as the economy recovers from the global pandemic. Expanding on our commercial portfolio is an essential part of our vision for the growth of the organisation.
Here are some of our highlights during 2021/22: -
Commercial Business Achievements Our successful commercial activities brought in £5.1M worth of business from customers outwith our three constituent Councils in 2021/22. Highlights included James Hutton Institute: Contract value £250K – to undertake surfacing of new access road Aberdeen City Surface Dressing: Contract value £125K – Ongoing collaborative approach to delivering surface dressing, Glen Lyon: Contract value £625K – Installation of gabion baskets Collace Quarry: external sales to private parties provided an income of £850K
Commercial training success in 2021/22 Tayside Contracts generated income of £96k from commercial training activities. This greatly exceeded our budget target of £30k. We successfully expanded our portfolio of customers in part due to our membership of the Scottish Roads Training Partnership (SRTP).
North East Trunk Road Partnership with AMEY Tayside Contracts’ successful commercial approach can be demonstrated through our partnership working with the national infrastructure services and engineering company, Amey, to develop a bid to operate the maintenance of the strategic trunk roads in Scotland. This responsibility for roads in Scotland is split between local Councils for the majority of the roads, other than the main Trunk Roads (see map below), which are the responsibility of the Scottish Government, who tender for providers to carry out all maintenance and management of these roads.
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North East Unit: Total route length of the network in NE: 593km Number of sturctures: 485 Mix of motorway, dual carriageway and allpurpose single carriageway trunk roads Mix of rural and urban with cities of Perth, Dundee, Inverness and Aberdeen (AWPR excluded).
Our hard work with AMEY during 2021/22 was rewarded when in April 2022 Amey were awarded the North East Operating and Maintenance contract with an operational start date of the 16th August 2022. The initial contract is for 8 years with the option to extend this for a period of up to four years. This contract covers roads from the River Forth to the Moray Coast.
At the initial stage of the contract, it has been agreed with Amey that we will provide Depot facilities at Forfar, Dundee and Perth, as well as assist with Winter Maintenance Provision. This will provide a substantial and sustained income to Tayside Contracts and sharing depts with Amey will offset the significant running costs of these facilities. We look forward to building on the commercial and partnership opportunities with Amey throughout the duration of the contract, assisting them to deliver services in a collaborative, sustainable approach, engaging the local supply chain wherever possible.
Increasing our Commercial Attractiveness by Improving Efficiencies at Collace Quarry.
Our Quarry at Collace in Perth and Kinross Council, provides the roadstone materials for our three Councils roads maintenance and repair needs, as well as selling the material commercially, which is a valuable source of income for the organisation. If we can reduce our costs, we make ourselves more attractive commercially (as well as saving costs for our Councils).
To achieve this, we introduced an alternative approach in early 2022, for the production of single size stone at Collace Quarry. Production of single size aggregate, (a key constituent in coated roadstone manufacturing) had been undertaken through a static crushing and screening plant. Our 30-year-old plant was becoming more uneconomical to run, increased our maintenance costs and reduced our output. This combination resulted in a high cost per tonne, which was affecting our commercial offer.
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After a robust review it was concluded mobile crushing and screening would provide better value for money, reducing the cost of production by £180k per year. This has also allowed the quarry to be protected against some of the other increasing cost pressures arising from global increases for items such as bitumen, fuel and other material costs. A local company (Eagle Recycling) were successful in winning the tender to providing this service. Below are photographs of the current crushing plant operating at Collace. The new mobile plant sitting in the foreground.
Maximising our Commercial Activity - Cross Tay Link Road The Cross Tay Link Road is one of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken by Perth & Kinross Council. It will involve the construction of a new 3-span bridge over the River Tay and a six-kilometre stretch of new carriageway linking the A9 and the A93 to Blairgowrie and the A94, just north of Scone. The project will improve the local transport network and traffic flow and reduce journey times. It will also enhance pedestrian and cycle safety,
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increase network capacity as well as significantly reducing traffic congestion and related pollution in Perth city centre. The project is being delivered by engineering and construction group BAM Nuttall (BAM). During 2021/22 we worked with BAM to assist in the delivery of this key project, through the delivery of 400,000 tonnes of dry material required during the groundworks phase of this project.
Next steps:
We will continue to maximise the opportunities to generate more commercial income for Tayside Contracts so the financial benefits can be shared by our constituent Councils. We have a targeted list of commercial opportunities and are working through these with our teams, and prospective customers.
Our main target is to build on the investment made by our constituent Councils in our innovative cook freeze unit at Tay Cuisine. This project has been one of the largest initiatives ever embarked upon by Tayside Contracts, with an investment of £1.9m and years of planning and development. This creates tremendous commercial opportunities. The unit is currently scheduled to produce around 5 million nursery, school and community meals but has the potential capacity to produce up to 20 million meals per year. Therefore, we can offer the extra meals production capacity at the facility to other potential customers.
To achieve that aim, we are working with the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland to promote this opportunity to other Council Education Departments in Scotland, as well as working with other potential local authority and institutional customers.
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Collaboration and Sharing ‘Sharing the gain’ Greater collaboration between our constituent Councils offers a proven route to reducing costs whilst maintaining service quality. If savings are not found through innovations such as sharing services, then our Councils will need to find these savings by other means, including service reductions. Sharing services also offers other benefits, such as being more attractive to recruit and retain staff; offering improved innovation opportunities by pooling investment across partners; providing the scale to access best practice and create centres of expertise; ensuring a large, flexible workforce available to deploy to priorities such as extreme weather events; and having access to specialist staff that individual partners would struggle to supply, if operating independently.
Here are some of our highlights during 2021/22: -
Collaboration in Practice - Street Lighting Partnership Street Lighting is a core service delivered by Tayside Contracts, maintaining a large scale illuminated asset to keep people safe – this includes 72,000 illuminated columns, 4,560 illuminated signs and 1,380 illuminated bollards. The Partnership also undertakes a variety of electrical and lighting commissioned for private sector clients and developers. The Street Lighting Partnership is an excellent example of collaborative success in practice, and this can be evidenced through Performance information. This is monitored through the Tri Street Lighting Partnership Board which meet on a quarterly basis as part of the formal governance arrangements.
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The performance data used are a combination of information made available through the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland (SCOTS)/ Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE) annual return and internal indicators. A summary of some of the highlights are detailed below.
SCOTS/APSE 2021/22- Scottish Cities Comparison As a result of our recent investment programme in LED lighting, Dundee consumes the lowest amount of electricity on average annually per streetlight and also has the lowest CO2 emissions per light of any Scottish city. The city has the highest percentage of white and LED lights of any Scottish city. We have the most modern, efficient lighting and our lights are the most reliable in Scotland with proportionately the least reported lighting faults overall. We repair the highest percentage of lights within 7 days of any Scottish city.
Internal Fault Indicators 2021/22 Angus A total of 333 faults repaired over the year Percentage of faults complete within 7 days is 94% for the year. Average time to repair of 3.1 days over the year is a strong level of performance, compared to other Councils. Only 0.2% of lighting stock is reported faulty by members of the public, indicating high reliability in the lighting stock. Dundee A total of 309 faults repaired over the year Percentage of faults complete within 7 days is 97.8% for the year. Average time to repair of 2.6 days over the year is a strong level of performance compared to other Councils. Only 0.2% of our lighting stock is reported faulty by members of the public, indicating high reliability in the lighting stock. Perth & Kinross A total of 2829 faults repaired over the year Percentage of faults complete within 7 days is 98.5% Average time to repair of 2.1 days over the year is a strong level of performance, compared to other Councils Only 0.7% of our lighting stock is reported faulty by members of the public, indicating high reliability in the lighting stock.
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Collaboration in Practice Roads Maintenance Partnerships (RMPs) We share RMPs in Dundee City and Perth & Kinross, where a more partnership approach to Roads Maintenance is taken to sharing staff and resources, thereby saving considerable costs from having separate ‘Client’ and ‘Contractor’ roles in each organisation.
Perth Road Maintenance Partnership (PRMP) Investment is road resurfacing has been a priority of Perth and Kinross Council in both 2020/21 and 2021/22, and through the high quality, works carried out by Tayside Contracts, the national Road Condition Indicator (RCI) has improved by 2.1% and 3.5% respectively in each year. This was a key objective of Perth and Kinross Council, when allocating additional funding to road maintenance. Over the two-year period this investment has resulted in 135km of the road network being in a better condition. The value of operating our own quarry at Collace contributed by supply 75,600 tonnes of coated material through a collaborative planning and programmed approach to ensure maximum efficiency and delivery.
Performance is monitored and reported to the Perth and Kinross Convenor of the Environment and Infrastructure Committee monthly. The key highlights from 2021/22: Road Condition Figure (RCI) improved by 3.5% meaning 86km of network in better condition. Safety Inspections performed above target at 97%, against a target of 95% Defect repair compliance with timescales reported at 81%, against a target of 80%. The number of potholes repaired in total (Category 1 to 4) was 15,150 which is significantly higher than historical averages. First Time Permanent (FTP) repairs remained lower than desired at 61%, but improvements resulted in January 2022 figure reporting 96% compliance, demonstrating a considerable improvement. Gully cleansing for the 2021/22 - cleaned 22,675 (91%) of the targeted 25,000 gullies per annum.
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Dundee Road Maintenance Partnership (DRMP) Performance is monitored and reported to the Dundee Road Maintenance Partnership Board Quarterly, with an annual report summarising the overall performance in June each year. The key highlights from 2021/22: Safety Inspection performing above target at 98% against a target of 95% Defect repair compliance was very positive. with Category 1, 2 & 3 road repairs all completed within target times for 2021/22 with response rates of Cat 1 99% (Target 90%), Cat 2 100% (Target 85%) and Cat 100% (Target 80%) The number of potholes repaired in total (CAT 1 to 4) was 16,466 which is significantly higher than historical averages. First Time Permanent (FTP) repairs remained lower than desired at 15.1%, against a target of 30%. Issues with recording and reporting were identified as a factor for this lower than expected output, although not the sole reason. Proposals have been put forward to amend the methodology of closing defects and the repair process with a view to improving FTP’s. Gully cleansing for the 2021/22 - cleaned 19.514 (117.6%) of the targeted 16,600 gullies per annum The development of Roads Maintenance Partnerships in Dundee and Perth and Kinross, the Street Lighting Partnership across all three Council areas, and the transfer of fleet services from Angus Council have contributed to greater efficiencies and service improvements. It is estimated that these integrated arrangements have saved over £200k in staff costs alone.
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Perth & Kinross Joins the Tay Cuisine Model In January 2022 we stated producing meals at Tay Cuisine - our state-of-the-art Central Production Unit (CPU) - for distribution to 131 schools and nurseries throughout Perth and Kinross, adding to the similar service we were already providing to schools in Angus and Dundee City.
Tayside Contracts’ exciting vision for the future of our school, nursery and community meals services was initially conceived five years ago. Without the CPU, the three Tayside Councils would have found themselves in the situation many other Scottish Councils are now faced with, that is, not being able to take advantage of the Scottish Government’s commitment to offering Universal Free School Meals (UFSM) to all nursery and primary school pupils by August 2022. Those other Councils still operate the traditional way of cooking all school meals in kitchens throughout their school estates and are struggling with the capacity to provide the substantial increase in demand resulting from UFSM. This initiative successfully delivered recurring revenue costs savings of £450,000 per annum for Perth & Kinross Council, as part of an overall £1m per year saving for all three Councils combined.
Tay Road Bridge - Collaborative approach to delivering a long-term project A collaborative relationship which began in 2014 - with the successful realignment of the Tay Road Bridges Fife Roundabout - continues to blossom due to early involvement and collaboration, with proactive problem solving by Tayside Contracts being a feature of the relationship. With the successes of continued maintenance works and emergency assistance being offered by Tayside Contracts Dundee Road Maintenance Partnership (DRMP) to the operation of the Tay Road Bridge, The Road Bridge Joint Board knew exactly where to look when they began the planning for major capital works planned for 2023 and 2024.
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In preparation for these works, Tayside Contracts were engaged to act as the main contractor for exploratory testing works on the bridge which will assist in the design and preparation of the main works package. Tayside Contracts co-ordinated the delivery of the schemes traffic management, surfacing removal and reinstatement and testing of the concrete deck, using a combination of in-house labour and external specialist sub-contractors. The results of these tests will give the designers a vital insight into the condition of the bridges deck which would be otherwise impossible. In 2022/23 further collaborative work will continue, involving the Tayside Contracts UKAS accredited laboratory at Collace Quarry, to formulate the design of material to be laid on the bridges deck. This will be followed by the DRMP undertaking “live test” at an agreed site replicating the bridge conditions.
A Bespoke Salt Barn for Dundee
In September 2021 the Dundee Roads Maintenance Partnership was handed the keys to its very own bespoke salt barn capable of holding up to 5,500 tonnes of salt at its winter hub at Marchbanks in Dundee. The barn allows UK sourced “Rock Salt” to be used rather than “Marine Salt” sourced generally from Europe. The barn not only allows the UK sourced salt be used at an annual saving of £220K (based on 5,500 tonnes used). It will also mitigate the loss of salt through weather related leaching (loss of salt) and has been designed with photovoltaic (solar) panels on its roof as a means to power the lights both within and outside the barn, but also assist in the charging the future fleet of all electric gritters and sweepers.
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Next steps: Developing future collaborative opportunities We believe that Tayside Contracts is well positioned and structured to deliver further mutually beneficial shared services for our constituent Councils, whether through integration with ‘client’ services to remove duplication of effort and improve cohesion (such as our joint work with Roads Maintenance and Street Lighting Partnerships, and Integrated Facilities Management Services) or through providing complementary activities, currently carried out by private contractors for our Councils.
We have Identified opportunities for further collaborative service delivery using a criteriabased priority programme of collaborative opportunities developed a draft shared criteria to assess and prioritise the different opportunities, and we will work with our councils to develop an agreed programme of collaborations, for the next 3 years and beyond.
The opportunities available for collaboration greatly exceed our capacity to deliver, and we need to ensure that our collaborations have the appropriate levels of staffing resources and funding, to provide the capacity to be successful.
If we expect these major initiatives to be delivered as an add-on to peoples’ busy operational jobs, we run the risk of failure. Therefore we, have implemented an ‘Innovation and Improvement Fund’ of £200,000 to ensure we have the capacity to support more collaboration, through funding projects which will further the objectives of our Business Plan.
The Scottish Government’s National Roads Maintenance Review has stressed the importance of the benefits of a collaborative approach to roads-related functions, and the Scottish Government and Audit Scotland have expressed frustration over the lack of progression nationally. Our work in Tayside between our Councils and now with Amey as the trunk road operator, places us much further ahead than most areas in Scotland, however, there are greater opportunities for fuller integration, and a real opportunity to build on the willingness from the three Councils to pursue greater levels of roads service collaboration. This is currently being explored by a Tri-Council Roads Maintenance Group.
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Continuous Improvement And Performance ‘Think like a customer, act like a taxpayer’ The need to make sure we are delivering excellent public services at the right time, in the right way, and to the right people and communities, has never been greater. The future sustainability of public services requires us all to be more innovative and open to change; we must be more entrepreneurial and innovative, in order to make the best use of the limited resources that we have and provide the best service to our customers and communities. The more efficient and effective we are, the more competitive we will be.
Here are some of our highlights during 2021/22: -
Sharing Our Buildings to Deliver Benefits The global pandemic, accompanied by the remarkably rapid adoption of new technology, has shown that we no longer need to rely exclusively on an office-based model of service delivery. Working with our Council partners, we have taken opportunity to ‘build back better’ from the pandemic and share accommodation, releasing savings from building operating costs and freeing us from future maintenance cost obligations. We have given a commitment to 'Make Best Use of Our Assets' in our drive to protect jobs and public services. One of these physical assets is our properties and through working with our Council colleagues we have continued to investigate sharing facilities such as offices and depots across Tayside. The following summarises our current shared use of buildings:
Angus Carnie Depot Arbroath – shared with Angus Council Waste Management and Roads Infrastructure teams Forfar Depot – shared between Street Lighting Partnership and Amey PLC (Trunk Road, Contractor) Dundee Marchbanks Depot - shared with Amey PLC Fairmuir Depot – shared between Dundee Roads Maintenance Partnership and Street Lighting Partnership Perth and Kinross Ruthvenfield Depot – shared between Perth Roads Maintenance Partnership, Street Lighting Partnership, Perth Housing repairs team and Amey PLC Blairgowrie Depot - shared with Perth & Kinross Roads Maintenance Partnership, and sharing depot space to facilitate a potential review of waste management services on the adjacent Perth & Kinross Council site.
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Blair Atholl to Aberfeldy move – we moved to a more modern and better located site in Aberfeldy. Gritting routes have been redesigned, improving efficiency, as we no longer need temporary cabins and loading equipment to be situated at satellite depots. Perth & Kinross Council Grounds Maintenance team are also sharing the site, freeing up their previous location, for commercial rent.
Transport/Fleet Performance – Maintaining High Standards for Reliable Service Delivery 2021/22 was another outstanding year from the Fleet Maintenance team maintaining their performance well above the national average performance. This not only demonstrates a high level of performance it also provides the assurance that a reliable fleet is managed and maintained to meet the needs of our vehicle users. The annual test pass rate for 'first time pass' was 98.12% this remains an exceptionally high score against a national average of 90.4%. The high score at annual test is generally attributed to regular staff training, good workshop practice, regular vehicle inspections and quality control checks on maintenance staff. Currently Tayside Contracts score remains at “GOOD” for both Roadworthiness and Traffic which is the best score that can be achieved, and has never been below this rating since the introduction of the system in October 2012.
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Investment in Mobile Technology Delivering Significant Improvements Dundee City Council and Tayside Contracts have successfully integrated mobile technology for use in all routine and reactive works, from defect identification to on site completion of repairs. This has led to significant improvements across all measurable performance indicators as a result of enhanced ability to plan works on a target basis, and much improved flow of information between inspectors, supervisors and front-line operatives. Improvements include: 99.5% of defects completed within target time Average response time falling from 5.75 days in 2019/20 to 4.5 days, despite a 15% increase in defects A 58% reduction in pothole repair costs year on year, with a 55% overall reduction from project inception Like for Like defects repaired quicker and to the same service standard Reduction in repair costs through more efficient programming, facilitated by the systems technology
Investors in People (IIP) re-accreditation IIP is a nationally recognised standard for people management, defining what it takes to lead, support, and manage people effectively to achieve sustainable results. In November 2021, we were proud to announce that we retained accreditation from Investors in People (IIP), having fully met the IIP Framework at the standard level. The award was the result of a rigorous assessment process and recognises our investment in the development and wellbeing of our people as well as the hard work that everybody across the organisation has put in to make Tayside Contracts a great place to work. We have invested in training and development and reinforced a culture where people feel valued and appreciated.
‘We congratulate you and your staff on the way you continue to actively manage limited resources whilst continuing to deliver services to the highest possible standards in very difficult and challenging times.’ Hilary Crick, IIP Lead Assessor
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Recruitment and Retention Action Plan The 2021/22 post pandemic UK labour market resulted in unprecedented shortages of labour across a wide range of industries throughout the UK, and became known nationally as ‘The Great Resignation’ or ‘The Big Quit’ global phenomenon. For Tayside Contracts, this brought with it significant challenges to recruit and retain employees, to allow us to continue delivering our essential public services. To proactively respond to these significant challenges, we developed a Recruitment and Retention Strategy, which we began to implement in November 2021. The Strategy’s action plan outlines measure we are taking to improve recruitment and retention within the organisation: 1. Introduced an electronic exit questionnaire to identify trends in relation to reasons for leaving the organisation. 2. Created a Facebook jobs page which at the time of writing had has 864 likes and 1,335 followers 3. Designed and fitted decals for our vehicles advertise us and local employer of choice 4. Designed perimeter banners to promote our vacancies 5. Developed employee testimonials to showcase the different roles and career options we can offer. Surveys of new entrants to the organisation showed that these novel means of attracting new recruits did have a positive impact on our recruitment.
Wellbeing - Mental Health Training for Managers and Frontline Employees In 2021/22 stress and depression were the second highest causes of employee absences (behind COVID 19). As part of our proactive approach to tacking this issue, through our Wellbeing Strategy Action Plan, we teamed up with our colleagues at the expert mental health organisation ‘Headtorch’ to roll out training on mental health in the workplace to all managers and employees. During 2021/22, all managers were invited to attend online training called Headtorch Aware.
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This was designed to provide them with the skills to better understand mental health and how this can impact on them and their teams. Following the successful roll out of manager training, we moved our focus to providing training to our front-line employees. Head Start is a televisual online learning programme which is an introduction to mental health with some hints and tips on how employees can look after their own mental health and wellbeing as well as spotting the signs that others around them might be struggling and what they can do about that.
Continuous Improvement in School Meals Following a shared concern regarding the level of uptake of school meals, it was agreed that a working group, comprising of senior managers from Tayside Contracts and the three Councils, would examine current performance across a range of indicators and identify where and how there is scope to improve the service in terms of quality and cost and, in particular, to increase the uptake of school meals. This involved comprehensive stakeholder surveys, and considerable partnership working between Tayside Contracts and the three Councils. A report of the findings was presented to the Joint Committee in June 2021 with a wide range of recommendations agreed by the Committee, covering the following main themes School Food The School Meal Dining Experience Stakeholder Communication and Engagement Since the report was approved, we have been working with our constituent Councils to implement the recommendations. Assessing the benefits of this work on the uptake of meals has been significantly impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic, resulting in successive lockdowns, and heightened pupil absences during the year. We are continuing to implement the plans, and monitor the meal uptake numbers.
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Greater Efficiencies and Customer Satisfaction Through Menu Standardisation The standardisation of school menus across the entire Tayside school estate was a major achievement in 2021/22, which generated substantial efficiencies the three Councils in the provision of the school catering service. We take great care in engaging with our users to design our cross-Tayside menus, to meet their preferred meal choices. Here is just one example of our consultation events:
Improving and Adapting to Changing Requirements: New Nutritional Regulations In April 2021, the Nutrional Requirements for Food and Drink in Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2020 were introduced to help improve the health of children and young people, based on increasing evidence about the food we consume. There changes were likely to have a greater impact on secondary school pupils, due to the discontinuation of popular foods as well as changes to drinks provided. To communicate the changes to the pupils, a presentation was created highlighting the positive outcomes of the changes. The Business Improvement Team worked in collaboration with the Communications Team to develop the presentation into a 90 second YouTube video, which is easily accessible for pupils in order to engage with them. This was shared with all secondary schools who disseminated it to pupils. To date we have reached 2.5k views. Click the image to view the video.
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Next steps: We know that many of the best ideas for improvement and efficiency come from the people closest to the work activity. We are working on an ‘improvement and innovation’ nomination initiative, to identify and cultivate these creative ideas from our people.
Our focus on technology has great potential to release capacity, with transformation proposals in areas such as mobile working, working from home, vehicle tracking, and analysis of data – all of which are capable of delivering great improvements in productivity and efficiency. In 2021/22 we invested in new systems for Financial management and Human Resources, and are implementing these to deliver productivity and efficiency improvements.
We recognise that Investors in People is a journey of continuous improvement, and we will be embracing the IIP Assessor’s feedback and recommendations, to continue our drive to a fully empowered participative and democratic culture, enhance development and opportunities for all employees, and encourage everyone to reflect our values in the services we deliver.
Working with our Council colleagues we will extend our approach to sharing other facilities such as depots across Tayside. We will look to extend these discussions to other public services, where shared accommodation and facilities could deliver mutual savings.
We will continue the rollout of the technology which has already allowed us to quickly implement an agile strategy to allow staff to work safely and securely from home during periods of COVID lockdown. We will be looking to offer this level of agility to our front-line operational staff out on site, and to use mobile phones and smart digital devices to extend connectivity and communication as far as possible, to share the benefits of technology to these colleagues. A key area for our performance focus is the uptake of school meal numbers, which have struggled to increase to prepandemic levels. We are continuing to work with our constituent Councils to implement the recommendations of our study, reported to the Joint Committee in June 2021.
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Communities, Councils And Customers ‘Creating community wealth’ Narrowing inequalities gaps, making a difference to our most vulnerable citizens, helping people into employment, supporting the local economy, protecting the environment, promoting community empowerment, and giving people an equal chance in life, are motivators which sit at the heart of our role as public servants. As one of the largest employers in the area with a firm commitment to corporate social, ethical and environmental responsibility, we are in a strong position to support the wider ambitions of our constituent Councils and our communities, to enhance the lives of everyone in Tayside.
Here are some of our highlights during 2021/22: -
Supporting Local Employability The Tay Cities deal sets out an ambitious agenda to increase employability and skills. We have teamed up with Council employability teams and Skills Development Scotland to create pathways to give guidance, training and employment opportunities with Tayside Contracts. During 2021/22 we also explored opportunities for engagement with Developing the Young Workforce, recognising the disproportionate impact that the Covid-19 pandemic is anticipated to have on the employment prospects of young people. We have committed to the Young Person’s Guarantee, which is a commitment to connect every 16- to 24-year-old in Scotland to an employment opportunity. We have formed a partnership with Dundee City Council’s Employability Team and Discover Work and together ran two week-long ‘Job Academies’ for individuals seeking work via this route, many of whom later secured employment within our Facilities Service Division.
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Job Academies are a fantastic opportunity for job seekers to gain invaluable advice, support and skills training and enables Tayside Contracts to showcase and offer exciting employment opportunities working at the heart of the community. We have been working in partnership with Council Employability Teams, Job Centre Plus and Remploy which, amongst other things, has involved attending recruitment fairs in Angus, Dundee and Perth & Kinross, to attract new employees to the organisation. We have worked in partnership with the Job Centre in Perth and delivered ‘Meet the Employer’ presentations to Work Coaches. This has given the Work Coaches a more comprehensive understanding of the nature and demands of our roles so that they can talk confidently about our different roles and match candidates to our job vacancies effectively. This will continue throughout 2022/23 and be expanded to Job Centres in Dundee and Angus.
An example of our dedication to support young people into employment is demonstrated by our commitment to Apprentices:
Operations Roadworker Apprentices - Tayside Contracts apprentice training programme for 'construction roadworkers' has demonstrated further success with five apprentices all successfully completing their two-year apprenticeships and being offered permanent positions at their respective depots. This is a great achievement for all involved, especially the apprentices for showing the aptitude and skills to complete the programme. Following the success, the Construction Division have continued the commitment to recruitment of apprentice roadworkers as a means of offering opportunities to young people, whilst addressing workforce shortages in the industry. We have recently welcomed a further six apprentices across our Fairmuir, Ruthvenfield, Cairnie and Forfar Depots. This is a two-year apprenticeship programme with ‘on the job’ training supported by block release at college for 14 weeks throughout the first year. This leads to qualifications that benefit Tayside Contracts and the individual’s long term personal development.
Transport Apprentices - Tayside Contracts currently have six apprentice mechanics at various stages, from those just starting out, to those approaching the completion of the apprenticeship. They are engaged across the workshops at Peasiehill Depot Arbroath, Fairmuir Depot Dundee and Ruthvenfield Depot Perth. This continues to demonstrate our commitment to ‘growing our own’, supporting the development of our young people and ensuring skills development in this part of industry which like many practical vocational jobs has experienced sever recruitment difficulties. Similar to the operations apprentices, their time is split between practical time in the workshop and theoretical studies through block release at College.
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Supporting Equalities: Our Work with North East Sensory Services (NESS) We work with a range of groups to give as many people as possible the opportunity to become part of our workforce, here is just one example. NESS provides support to people in Dundee City and Angus who have significant sight and/or hearing loss. Prior to developing a working relationship with Tayside Contracts, NESS had been aware that Tayside Contracts already employed several profoundly deaf clients NESS found this refreshing, as a number of employers seemed reluctant to offer this client group work – possibly due to a lack of awareness of the support and advice available.
‘From day one, I found the Tayside Contracts to be totally understanding and supportive. Nothing was too much trouble. Tayside Contracts has no hesitation in employing people who are deaf, they had no issues about supporting their employees, making reasonable adjustments or providing BSL interpreters for our clients. Tayside Contracts actively wanted to learn more about supporting our client group and queried about awareness training for Human Resources and staff teams. They have went above and beyond, even having information transcribed into BSL format and sent out to the clients’ email addresses so that they would fully understand what was being said. We worked together on applying for Access to Work funding so that there is a “bank” of BSL interpreter hours for particular deaf employees. It meant that deaf employees could have the necessary induction, team meetings and mandatory training without Tayside Contracts having to pay for it’. Janice Grey, Employment Officer, NESS
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Supporting Local Communities Introduction of our Supported Volunteering Policy
Supporting Communities is at the core of what we do. We wanted to give more of our staff the opportunity to help communities – whether this is through ‘hands on’ activities such as litter picking or supporting foodbanks, or through our professional/technical skills such as accountancy or logistics skills. In 2021/22 Tayside Contracts introduced a Supported Volunteering Policy, meaning that employees who give up a day of their own time (by taking annual or unpaid leave) to volunteer will be granted another day’s paid leave to volunteer. Volunteering is a great way for employees to develop new skills, add variety to their work, engage with and contribute to the local community, or a charity.
It’s also one of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing, as acts of kindness – like volunteering – is linked to increased wellbeing. Further work is currently underway to partner with the Social Enterprise Social Good Connect which offers employees a digital matching platform to match employee interests and skills with relevant volunteering opportunities. In 2021 we engaged with Dundee City Council Social Work and Perth & Kinross Council Early Years Team– with discussions to provide food safety training for Faith in the Communities (DCC) and nursery and schools staff (PKC). This training has been set up and being delivered during 2022/23.
Supporting Dundee Bairns We are proud to have worked in partnership with the Dundee Bairns Fun and Food Programme since April 2016. During that period, we have supported the provision of more than 300,00 meals to children who need additional support, across the city of Dundee. Children who received and indeed rely on free school meals during school term time, often have no such provision during school holiday periods.
It was this that inspired the aptly named Dundee Bairns Fun & Food Programme. The activities of Dundee Bairns extended to include the provision of a Tea Club which is an after-school homework club that runs between 3.30 and 5.00pm and includes a 2-course hot evening meal.
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The Dundee Bairns Tea Club has been able to evidence that even within a short time frame a homework and hot meal after school activity can have a positive impact on attainment, pupil perceptions of health and happiness, and teachers’ perceptions of pupil confidence and engagement with learning. The first tea club for the winter months started in 2021 beginning at Rowantree Primary, closely followed by Downfield Primary and St Frances Primary. Members of the hard-working Tayside Contract catering teams work closely with Dundee Bairns to prepare and serve the two-course hot meal to families and children attending homework groups.
Supporting our Local Economies
The Whale has Landed Dundee's Waterfront Place is now complete with the impressive Whale sculpture taking pride of place. This new piece of public realm has raised the City’s profile and the Dundee Streetlighting Partnership between Tayside Contracts and the City Council, both designed and installed the lighting throughout the park. As well as floodlights on grey 8 metre high poles with illuminated blue finials, the park is lit throughout with bollard lighting on the paths through the trees, and impressive under-bench lighting around the urban beach area. The area under the Whale itself and the digital playpark is lit with ground mounted lights which are colour changing and can be operated remotely.
With the help of specialist teams to install the fibre-optic lighting under the whale and the lighting for the fountains, our Tayside Contracts team have successfully completed the scheme which will be an attraction to locals and visitors alike over the coming years and enhancing Dundee’s reputation as a destination of choice for visitors.
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Working with NFU Scotland to Support Local Food Producers
It is well known that Tayside is recognised - both nationally and internationally - as a place that produces the finest food and drink, and as the largest catering organisation in the Tayside area providing over 6 million meals to schools and communities in the Angus, Dundee City and Perth & Kinross areas every year, we are committed to taking full advantage of this by using as much locally sourced produce as possible. Tayside Contracts in partnership with NFU Scotland, hosted an event in the Strathmore Hall, Forfar on Wednesday 2 March 2022 that brought together local food producers across Tayside, to explore working together to support Tayside businesses and increase the levels of locally grown and produced food served in school lunches.
Several local food producers already supply produce for school and community meals, however we are looking to extend that to ensure that we continue to provide sustainable, high quality, healthy, nutritious and delicious meals to nearly 30,000 customers daily, whilst generating more income for local businesses. The event was very successful with presentations by our suppliers Total Produce, Brakes, Campbells Prime Meats and also from Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET), who visit schools in Angus and Dundee to talk to children and young people about food, food production and farming. We look forward to the relationships and opportunities that will undoubtedly grow from this collaboration.
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Climate Change and Sustainability
Climate Change Plan During the year we developed the first ever Tayside Contracts Climate Change Plan, which was approved by the Joint Committee in November 2021. Our Climate Change Plan sets out how the organisation will move towards net zero, influence others to take action on climate change, and how we will work with partners to limit the impact of climate change already being experienced in Tayside.
Developing Low Emissions Roads Surfacing Materials As part of our Business Plan and Climate Change objectives, we are committed to continued action on the carbon emissions of asphalt production aa a positive step forward in the achievement of our collective NET ZERO ambitions. We have been working with industry professional and client partners to introduce materials that are manufactured and supplied at lower temperatures than conventional asphalts. As a result, they will offer significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. They also deliver a range of site safety and productivity benefits. We have always looked to innovate in asphalt design, manufacture, and installation, to meet infrastructure challenges. We have championed the reuse of construction material and the production of low carbon material since the early 2000’s and in 2007, with the introduction of our Cold Mix asphalt Tayset. in partnership with Nynas UK and Dundee University.
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We are continuing this journey and looking to support the request for all those involved in construction to use warm mix asphalts (WMA). The principle behind WMA is that it is manufactured and applied at a temperature of 20 to 40°C lower than the equivalent currently used hot mix asphalt (HMA). This means carbon emissions will be up to 12% lower, with no compromise on performance, and no expected increase in cost. There will be a phased approach to implementation, with preliminary trials at sites in Perth & Kinross, Dundee City and Angus. On the assumption of no issues, this would be followed by the introduction of a more extensive trial and ultimately for WMA material to be the default material supplied to all.
Central Production Unit - Tay Cuisine Now Tay Cuisine is in full operation across the three Council areas, we are seeing the maximum environmental benefits. The single site is far more energy efficient than multiple kitchens across the Tayside area.
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Cycle to Work Scheme As part of both our Wellbeing Strategy and Climate Change Plan, during 2021/22, we opened our Cycle to Work Scheme to all employees. This Scheme encourages active travel and offers financial savings to our employees. During 2021/22, 16 employees took up the opportunity to purchase a bike through our Cycle to Work Scheme.
Next steps: We have developed a ‘Tayside Contracts Community Fund’ where we will support community empowerment, by offering local community groups our services (e.g. catering for events, minor road/parking repairs; small maintenance jobs; professional guidance), at no cost to the community groups - with groups from all parts of Tayside given an equal opportunity to access this support. This will be launched in 2022/23.
We will review our Procurement Strategy to ensure that sufficient weight is given to fair work, community benefit and procurement equality duties. We will support this by reviewing our community benefit clauses on our tender documentation, considering best practice from other organisations - to demonstrate the power of effective procurement to lever social and environmental benefits.
We have a detailed Climate Change Action Plan, and will be working through our actions during 2022/23 and beyond
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Summary Of Key Performance Indicators and Targets The table below details the target KPIs for 2021/22 from our Business Plan and the actual results.
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If you require any further information or you would like this document in another language or format, please contact enquiries@tayside-contracts.co.uk
Designed and created by TC/AD Nov 2022
