Laois County Council improves performance despite pandemic pressure
Laois County Council has improved its performance in 2021, despite Covid-19 and other challenges, and while providing additional innovations and services.
A newly published report shows Laois County Council delivered on essential services throughout 2021, while playing a vital role in the national response to the pandemic.
The local authority provided a range of new supports and grants to the public and businesses during the pandemic, including resilience and wellbeing community supports and changes to the public realm in the interests of public health and safety and local businesses.
Alongside this, Laois County Council continued to deliver essential services throughout, according to The NOAC Local Authority Performance Indicator Report 2021.
By the end of 2021, Laois County Council owned 2,222 social housing units, having added 61 units to our housing stock in 2021
The overall percentage of Laois County Council housing stock that was vacant at the end of 2021 was just 1.72%. This is an improvement on 2020 figure of 2.65%
As Laois County Council continues to focus on energy efficiency and climate targets, the percentage of the public lights using energy efficient LED lights in the county increased to 61.85% from 60% in 2020.
There was an 83.72% increase in new builds notified to Laois County Council, increasing to 553 in 2021. Laois County Council inspected 12.84% of these 2021.
In 2021, a total of 246 private rented dwellings were inspected by Laois County Council. 86.51% of motor tax transactions were conducted online during 2021.
In the same year, 94 of the 111 registered private water schemes in Laois were monitored by the local authority i.e 84.68%
Of the 3 Laois County Council planning decisions appealed to An Bord Pleanála in 2021, 2 were confirmed by An Bord Pleanála.
In the case of fires, the average number of minutes taken to mobilise the fire brigade in full-time stations in Laois 2021 was 5.82 minutes.
In 2021, there were a total of 84,697 visits to Laois County Council libraries and a total of 125,766 items were borrowed.
There were more than 651,918 visits to council websites and the council's social media following increased by 12.75% to 58,211 in 2021.
John Mulholland, Chief Executive, has paid tribute to the hard work and dedication of Laois County Council employees and elected members.
“Laois County Council continued to provide hundreds of services throughout 2021. At the same time, we played a vital role in the national response to the pandemic, supporting communities, businesses and local economies.
“We are continually seeking to improve services and increase efficiency and we made significant progress in a range of areas last year. We will build on our progress, continue to innovate and deliver quality public services,” the CEO said.