Mark Turley, Director of Services for Communities

As Director of Services for Communities, Mark is responsible for a wide range of ‘quality of life’ services such as housing, regeneration, waste management and disposal, roads, parks, libraries, environmental health and trading standards. Many of these services are delivered through local neighbourhood teams who aim to build good relationships with customers and other local stakeholders and to tune services to meet local needs.

Services for Communities was set up in 2006 and has delivered big improvements in performance in services such as street cleanliness, tackling anti-social behaviour, improving the condition of roads and footpaths, housing management and recycling. Customer research shows that people’s perception of the quality of these services is also improving.

The budget for Services for Communities is nearly £500m and the services involve more than 3,500 staff. Here are some examples of these services:

• handling over 260,000 tonnes of waste each year
• maintaining and cleaning about 1,400 kilometres of roads
• maintaining over 60,000 streetlights
• managing 23,000 council homes
• helping over 5,000 households who are homeless each year
• managing 141 parks, 1200 allotments, 150 play areas and 160,000 hectares of open space
• providing a wide range of services through 26 libraries and five mobile libraries including lending three million books to 100,000 borrowers
• ensuring food hygiene and general health and safety at restaurants, pubs, petrol stations and many other service outlets
• undertaking 3,500 cremations and burials each year and nearly 1,000 autopsies at our mortuary
• working jointly with the Police and others to tackle anti-social behaviour.

Personal Profile

• Mark graduated from Leicester University with a degree in Psychology. He became a member of the Institute of Housing by examination and went on to complete an MBA at Sheffield Business School.
• In 1993 Mark became Director of Housing here in Edinburgh having previously worked in Sheffield and York. In 2005, Mark was appointed Director of Services for Communities.
• Mark was a member of the Children’s Panel and has represented Cosla on a number of governmental working groups.

Director of Services for Communities Current salary (2009/10)

£120,513

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