Agenda and minutes

County Councillor Iddon took the Chair in County Councillor Driver's absence.

County Councillor Atkinson replaced County Councillor Driver.

County Councillor Williamson replaced County Councillor Green.

County Councillor Dawson replaced County Councillor Parkinson.

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 6 June 2019 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

A report was presented by Sue Lott, Head of Service – Adult Social Care Health on the development of the Occupational Therapy service within Adult Social Care at Lancashire County Council. The report demonstrated the improvements seen in the timeliness of assessments and the increase in Disabled Facilities Grants recommendations over recent years. The report also demonstrated the positive benefits of Occupational Therapy in adult social care and innovation possibilities for the future.

It was reported that prior to 2008, the NHS in Lancashire delivered all moving and handling, and equipment and adaptations assessments on behalf of the county council. The decision had then been taken to trial bringing the service back in-house. This had been completed in 2013 with both the Central Lancashire and North Lancashire Occupational Therapy services being delivered by Lancashire County Council and a Section 75 partnership arrangement remaining in East Lancashire whereby the NHS complete up to 100 Occupational Therapy assessments per month on behalf of Adult Social Care.

The Committee were informed that, within the Passport to Independence transformation programme in Adult Social Care, dedicated Occupational Therapist leadership had been created in the form of an Occupational Therapy County Manager post. In addition, the new Improved Better Care Fund monies offered the opportunity to enhance the overall Occupational Therapy establishment to better match demand and the number of Occupational Therapist posts within Adult Social Care was increased from 20 to 40 full time posts. All Social Care Support Officers had also been trained to assess for and commission lower level, less complex community equipment items.

An action plan had been produced in 2018 to reduce the waiting lists which set out new screening processes to be followed, data cleansing of the waiting lists, recruitment to new posts and initially some overtime hours for defined numbers of assessments.

A graph showed Cabinet Committee Members the significant improvement in the timeliness of assessments, with the number of people awaiting assessment across the county reducing from 1363 in March 2018 to 497 in August 2019. It was noted that these figures were for people who had been waiting 1 day or longer for an assessment. The Cabinet Committee noted that work was continuing on this, with the aim of the service reaching their 'business as usual' target to see everyone within 28 days of referral to an Occupational Therapist.

Details of community equipment activity and spend were provided to the Cabinet Committee, together with the three categories of provision:

·  simple items of equipment - available for general purchase and not provided by Health or Social Care as an outcome of an assessment;

·  'Retail Model' equipment - provided via a prescription (and available for general purchase) to receive standard equipment funded by Lancashire County Council or NHS, or service users could pay a 'top up' amount for a more suitable model;

·  complex community equipment – larger items e.g hoists, specialists chairs/beds loaned to service users for as long as they need them.

The process for accessing a Disabled  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Service – Business Intelligence, providing an overview of performance activity across the Council for Quarter 1 of 2019/20 and where appropriate/available, compared performance against previous quarters and with performance nationally.

Education and Children's Services

It was reported that the timeliness of undertaking children's social care assessments in quarter 1 remained at the improved level achieved in quarter 4 of 2018/19. The figures for assessments which took over 45 days to complete had been lower than all comparator averages for the past 2 quarters and there was now a target to complete in 30 days.

The latest child protection plan rate was the highest (57.0 per 10,000) it had ever been since February 2017 and the looked after children rate remained significantly higher than the comparators. However, the bid to the Department for Education to support the move to a family safeguarding model was predicted to address the high levels of children in care and those on child protection plans, following a planned and supportive model, whilst managing risk. County Councillor Williamson added that the family safeguarding model would bring wrap around family support to try to prevent children coming into care.

Following a recent joint inspection of Lancashire youth offending services, our Youth Offending Team had been rated as Good.

The permanent exclusion rate for Lancashire remained higher than the national, regional and statistical neighbours averages, although lots of work was ongoing to address this, including reshaping the special educational needs provision. County Councillor Williamson added that separate Service Heads had been appointed, one for under 11s and one for under 25s, and that work was being done with other authorities, in order to reduce the permanent exclusion rate.

The Children and Family Wellbeing payment by results claims had achieved the target of 5,370 families by June 2019.

The number of eBook downloads had increased significantly. A piece of work was currently being undertaken comparing Lancashire's library visitor figures to those in other authorities.

Growth, Environment, Transport and Community Services

It was reported that the average time taken to repair highway street lighting faults had decreased. This had been due to the Salix Light Emitting Diode (LED) replacement programme. The safety carriageway defects repaired within 2 working days and those repaired within 5 working days remained an area of concern. However, the Cabinet Committee noted that improvement should be seen in this area, once the amendments to the risk matrix filtered through from July 2019 figure.

County Councillor Iddon informed the Cabinet Committee that all Highways staff had been instructed to report any highways defects, even if these were not part of their area of work. It was noted that separate figures were available on which defects had been reported by Inspectors and those that had been reported by members of the public.

County Councillor Turner stated that there had been a vast improvement in the HAMS system.

The Cabinet Committee noted that increases were continuing to be seen at the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

A report was presented by Paul Bond, Head of Legal and Democratic Services, providing an updated (Quarter 2) Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register for the Cabinet Committee to consider and comment upon.

It was noted that, following the corporate approach to reporting on risk and opportunity, the Quarter 2 Risk and Opportunity Register had been reported to Corporate Management Team, following a review of the register. The register had now been updated to show progress against the risks and opportunities.

There were no additions or deletions to the Register, although there were a number of key updates which Paul provided a summary of to the Cabinet Committee.

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

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 2pm on Tuesday 15^th October 2019 in Committee Room B – The Diamond Jubilee Room, County Hall, Preston.

The next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement would be held at 2.00pm on Tuesday 15^th October 2019 in Committee Room B – The Diamond Jubilee Room, County Hall, Preston.