COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, January 15, 2024

MOTION NO. 4

MOTION: Councillor F. Timmons

That this Council requests that SDCC Organise information outreach sessions so that ordinary people can understand and appreciate the SDCC's systems and also what the SDCC can do, cannot do, and why. (This could help to improve the public's understanding of SDCC's powers and obligations, and also SDCC's limitations)

REPORT:

The statutory functions of the local authority are to provide a forum for the democratic representation and civic leadership of the local community, to carry out such functions, and any ancillary functions, conferred on it by or under any enactment, and to take such action as it considers necessary or desirable to promote the community interest.

This is obviously a very broad remit and difficult to define, however for greater consistency across the sector and easier access, the local government sector has catalogued over 1,000 services that are delivered by the majority of local authorities, accessible through the Local Government National Services catalogue. Not all local authorities will deliver all the services listed, for example South Dublin does not have any beaches for which there are three related services listed. However, through this online tool, the public can select their local authority to identify and ideally access the local service provided. South Dublin County Council is currently mapping this catalogue onto its A to Z of online services on the Council website and will use this as the key mechanism through which digital services are developed and made accessible online to local communities, residents, visitors and businesses. All of this work is underway as part of the Council’s Customer and Digital Services Transformation strategy, which is working to deliver the national Better Public Services Transformation strategy and its target on all public bodies to deliver 90% of applicable public services online by 2030.

 By embracing the Council’s core values of Inclusiveness, Equality, Accessibility, Accountability and Transparency, the Council consistently works to inform, communicate, consult and engage extensively with local communities, customers, the general public and all our stakeholders, in both the development of Council policies and services, as well as in reporting on our performance and delivery. The following is a summary of some of these activities, but it should be noted that this list is not exhaustive as many further outreach and engagement activities are developed on particular issues.

The Corporate Plan 2020 – 2024 sets out a statement of the principal activities delivered by SDCC, the objectives and priorities for each of the principal activities and strategies for achieving those objectives, the manner in which the Council proposes to assess its performance in respect of each such activity, and the structures within which the Council operates. It is developed through extensive engagement via workshops, survey’s, submissions and research carried out in local communities and with key stakeholders.

 Our principal services (Corporate Plan 2020 – 2024):

 Economic, enterprise and tourism development

 

Land use planning and transportation

 

Housing, social and community development

 

Environment, water and climate change

 

Organisational capacity and accountability

As well as the principal services, the Corporate Plan sets out the governance and engagement structures that are set up by the Council to provide thorough and effective mechanisms through which the Elected Members, local communities, local public service providers and other stakeholders engage with the Council, including:

Through these structures, the Council facilitates and supports the full engagement of all stakeholders to ensure their participation in the Council’s policy making processes and give and hear feedback on any service delivery issues. 

Using the objectives in the Corporate Plan and following the adoption of the budget each year, the Council prepares a Service Delivery Plan which sets out again the statement of the principal services that will be provided in respect of the local financial year to which the plan relates, as well as the objectives and priorities for the delivery of each of those services, and the strategies for achieving those objectives and priorities, the performance standards intended to be met in the delivery of services, and the manner in which the Council proposes to assess its performance in respect of the delivery of services. The Council’s performance and achievement of the standard set in the Service Delivery Plan is then publicly reported through the Annual Report.

Every month, the Chief Executive presents three reports to the Council to provide a current picture of the delivery of the Council’s functions:

  1. The Chief Executive’s Report details important achievements across our various departments whilst highlighting key statistics and images from events that took place that month. The report also highlights major news pieces and puts a focus on an area of the Council that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.
  2. A Statistical Report presents 79 key performance indicators across the 5 principal service areas. This report is extracted from the Digital Dashboard tool which is publicly accessible online and presents the Council’s performance visually and can aggregate the data for any individual month, or selection of months for the preceding 14 months. South Dublin County Council is unique in providing this performance reporting. 
  3. A Finance Report presents the Billing and Collection Statement for the year to date and the use of the Overdraft facility.

The Corporate Plan, annual Service Delivery plan, the Annual Report, and the Chief Executive’s Monthly Reports are published on the Council’s website www.sdcc.ie. A visual representation of the annual Service Delivery Plan is distributed each year in hard copy to every household, school and business in South Dublin County, and copies of the monthly Chief Executive Reports are available from local libraries, as well as being on the website and promoted extensively on social media.

The Council prepares two Citizen Newsletters each year, South Dublin County Today, and each edition provides a message from the Mayor, the details of all 40 councillors, their political affiliations and the local areas they represent, as well as updates on works programmes and service areas as well as events, achievements and issues of importance in the county. The Summer publication is distributed to every household, school, business and shopping centres in the county, and both are available in local libraries, as well as being on the website and promoted extensively on social media.

The Council advertises launches, events, consultations, surveys and festivals over our websites and social media platforms (including the corporate account, Dublin Outdoors, Libraries, Sports Partnership and LEO websites and channels), paid social media adverts, papers/magazine advertising, leaflets, bus shelters, information stands at community events and radio and cinema adverts. 

These methods of promotion of the Council’s work and services is known to be very effective as closer examination of the Council’s Monthly Statistics report demonstrates that there is a significant level of public engagement with the Council’s social media channels with 1.1million engaging in social media posts in 2023, almost 152,128 social media followers and 1.7 million website page views. Just over 2000 people actively engaged with the Council through our Consultation portal in 2023. These are the channels through which the above reports and corporate documents are published and promoted and where the level of engagement and reach stands for itself. All Council meetings and Area Committee Meetings are publicly webcast and the viewership figures show that since webcasting started in April 2022, there have been a total of 66 Council and Area Committee meetings webcast with a total viewership of 8982 (as of 31/12/2023) which is an average viewership of 136 per meeting. 

The Council also work closely with and in local communities in our day-to-day operations to support the development and build capacity in local communities through the network of the Community Workers in particular, but also across the range of range of facilities and programmes being developed across the county in community, youth and children, sports, environment, climate action, healthy living, arts, and libraries development.

The Deputations service gives local residents associations an opportunity to engage directly with Council officials and Elected Members to discuss specific issues of local concern to them.

There is also frequent engagement and outreach work with specific cohorts of people within local communities, for example environmental awareness programmes as well as very active enterprise support programmes in schools, the Age-friendly County Programme, and the Healthy Ireland Programme. The €300K Have Your Say participatory budgeting initiative is an excellent programme of engagement between local communities with several local workshops held in each area on the local needs of that area and giving local residents a direct say in where the money should be invested. Similar outreach workshops are commonly held for initiatives such as Local Area Plans, Teenspaces etc. 

These extensive outreach programmes have in more recent years been supported by the growth and successful recruitment of new positions which have a focus on outreach and engagement, such as Sports Development and Sports Inclusion Disability officers, Disability Access Liaison Officer, Creative Ireland Engagement Officer, Community Climate Action Officer, Housing Officers, Music Development Officer, Healthy County Co-ordinators – this list is not exhaustive of all the posts within the Council that have an outreach role, it is only intended as an indication of the more recently appointed positions to add to the already extensive network of frontline workers in this Council.

In summary, the Council places a significant focus on regularly and actively engaging with, seeking the public’s participation in and reporting on our performance to the public, local communities and other stakeholders on the development of all policies and the delivery of our services. The role of the Elected Members is also vital in providing the democratic representation of local communities and your support is critical to the reach and success of all of the above outreach and engagement efforts, and the active efforts to support and promote these activities made by Councillors is acknowledged and appreciated.