Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from County Councillor Michael Green and County Councillor Susie Charles.

Members are asked to consider any Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the Agenda.

No pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Resolved:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 18^th April 2018 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

A report was presented by Paul Bond, Head of Legal and Democratic Services, providing an updated Quarter 1 Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register for the Cabinet Committee to consider and comment upon.

The Committee noted that the Register had been aligned to the Annual Governance Statement and that it was the primary means of reporting progress for the main issues raised within the Statement.

It was reported that there were several new entries, re-worked entries and deletions to the Register and details of these were provided to the Committee.

Highlights included:

·  CR1.1 – 'Establishing a strong and visible leadership team' - one of the main focusses was on employing a new Chief Executive and Executive Director of Children's Services.

·  CR1.2 – 'Embed a focus on service delivery to secure a better service at a lower cost' - each service is undertaking a service challenge and mid-point review meetings were being scheduled.

·  CR5 - 'Managing our data well and producing effective management information' was a re-worked entry to the Register and related to data in both Adult Services and Children's Services.

·  CR7 - 'Delivering major projects/schemes on time and within budget' was a new entry to the Register and the Committee noted that initial review work had been undertaken of a sample of major capital schemes to improve the estimating and testing of current and future scheme costs.  Governance arrangements had also been improved to provide structured challenge.

The Committee noted that the updated Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register would be presented to the Audit, Risk and Governance Committee on 30th July 2018.

Resolved:  That the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement note the updated Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register.

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Service, Business Intelligence, providing an overview of performance activity across the Council for Quarter 4 of 2017/18.

Education and Children's Services

It was reported that retention of staff in children's social care had improved, including both newly qualified staff and experienced staff choosing to remain with Lancashire.  There were fewer first time entrants to the Youth Justice System and Lancashire remained lower than all comparator groups, although our offending rate was slightly above the national average.  This was due to the more complex cases being those that now come to the attention of the youth justice system. The Committee noted that absence levels across all educational settings remained low and that Lancashire was in the top quartile nationally.

Retention of newly qualified staff was improving and the proportion of social workers with over 3 years experience had improved, indicating that experienced staff were also being retained.

County Councillor Driver expressed concern that 25% of children's social care assessments completed during the year had taken over 45 days to complete.  Dave Carr, Head of Service – Policy, Information and Commissioning (Start Well) confirmed that this had been highlighted in the Ofsted self-assessment and that every district now had a duty team in place to address this.

Growth, Environment and Community Services

It was reported that it was taking longer to repair street lights and highways defects.  Phil Barrett, Director of Community Services reported that there had been problems with the new HAMS system, the long winter had stretched resources and that there had been issues with the operation/familiarisation of new equipment.  County Councillor Iddon wished to point out that staff were working hard to make the new system fit for purpose and that no repairs could be done for 3 months, due to the bad winter.  The figures provided in the report were based on defects repaired within 20 working days.  It was noted that had this been figures for defects repaired within 30 days, the figure would have been 90%.

Phil Barrett confirmed that staff were always encouraged to report any highway/street lighting issues and that they would be reminded again about the importance of this.

Libraries and Museums

The Committee noted that the service was currently developing a range of new indicators to cover the offers which featured in the library strategy.

Adult Services and Public Health

It was reported that the use of reablement for older adults had continued to increase, with both improved take up and effectiveness.  Significant progress had been made in reducing the number of delayed discharges from hospital attributable to adult social care, in that the figure had gone down by 43% since last March.  Admissions to residential care were still higher than comparator groups although improvements were being made.  The Committee noted that the proportion of people having health checks continued to increase, and that figures in Lancashire were better than nationally.

The number of reablement referrals had doubled in 2017/18 compared to 2016/17  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Paul Dyson-Knight, Senior Adviser Secondary and Post-16, presented a report on a recovery plan in relation to standards achieved by Lancashire children at the end of Key Stage 4.

It was reported that overall attainment in Lancashire was mostly in line with the national average, although Progress 8 scores were low.  The Committee noted that Lancashire standards remained above the national average for both genders in the English and Maths Basics measure.  At Grade 5+, figures were above the national average for Maths but below for English due to lower Literature scores; English Language had remained above the national average.

Due to relatively low entry rates for the full range of English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects, attainment at Grade 4+ and Grade 5+ had remained low over time.  The Attainment 8 score had been below the national average for 2017, reflecting low attainment in the EBacc and Open subjects, although these scores reflected curriculum choices.  However, Attainment 8 scores in English and Maths equalled the national average, along with the GCSE-only Open score.  Entry for GCSEs in Lancashire was higher than the national average, with lower entry for 'alternative' qualifications.

It was reported that too many schools were below the Progress 8 floor standard and too many met the coasting threshold, a measure which was soon to be discontinued.  The performance of disadvantaged pupils remained a key priority for development.

Details of the key strategic priorities in place were provided to the Committee, in addition to information on completed and ongoing actions related to the following:

·  Identified areas of focus;

·  Secondary Team Plan: School Service Guarantee Support actions;

·  Disadvantaged pupils;

·  Progress 8;

·  Floor standards;

·  Potential coasting schools;

·  Schools requiring Improvement.

It was reported that currently, 76% of Lancashire's secondary schools were judged to be good or better by Ofsted.  This was in line with the national average and above the North West average. 

The county council is continuing to support schools is working with governors to support the recruitment of appropriate Head Teachers into under performing schools, although it was noted that Head Teachers at 'good' schools are less likely to move to a school which 'required improvement' or was 'inadequate'.

The Committee was informed that attainment had fallen across all schools nationally, due to the new assessment measures introduced for GCSEs in 2017.

It was reported that the Schools Improvement Team were meeting with the Teaching Schools Alliance next week in relation to a primary/secondary literacy project.

Resolved:  That the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement note the report.

An item of Urgent Business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the minutes, the Chairman of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency.  Wherever possible, the Chief Executive should be given advance warning of any Members' intention to raise a matter under this heading.

There were no items of Urgent Business.

The next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement will be held at 2.00pm on Thursday 4^th October 2018 in Committee Room B – The Diamond Jubilee Room, County Hall, Preston.

The next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement would be held on Thursday 4^th October 2018 at 2.00pm in Committee Room B – The Diamond Jubilee Room, County Hall, Preston.