Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from County Councillor Michael Green and County Councillor Hasina Khan.

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 5^th December 2018 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Service, Business Intelligence, providing an overview of performance activity across the Council for Quarter 3 of 2018/19.

Education and Children's Services

It was reported that referrals to children's social care had decreased. The percentage of assessments completed for this quarter which took over 45 days was higher than other comparators. However, up to date information for January 2019 showed that the timeliness of assessments had improved.

The number of children looked after and rate per 10k has continued to increase and the latest rate of children subject to a child protection plan remained significantly higher than the national rate.  Sally Allen reported that officers were working on reducing these figures and that a number of initiatives were being taken forward.  For example, for children looked after, officers were looking at those children who were subject to a Care Order living at home with parents, and whether they still needed to be, and also looking into which children could be safely returned to their parents care.  Officers were also working on reducing permanence timescales.

In relation to the edge of care offer, more preventative and strengths based approaches to working with families were currently being explored including the use of Family Group Conferencing.

The Committee noted that average caseloads had remained stable, but that some social workers had very high caseloads. An audit of caseloads had been completed and actions agreed to address this.  This was being closely monitored.

It was reported that the average time taken between a child entering care and moving in with their adoptive family had reduced significantly.

A query was raised in relation to out of County placements and where the responsibility lay for these children.  It was confirmed that Lancashire would be responsible for investigating any safeguarding concerns for children placed within the County, but that the Authority who had placed the children here would have statutory responsibility for the child including funding and social work involvement.

In relation to school improvement, work was ongoing in certain areas of Lancashire where educational attainment was not as good as in other areas.  However, it was noted that attainment had improved at Key Stages 2 and 4 in 2017/18 compared to the previous year.

Growth, Environment, Transport and Community Services

The Committee were informed that, since monitoring against the new response standard for highways defect repairs, a defect reporting issue had been identified with the 4 hour and 2 day defects which had affected response times.  However, it was noted that this issue had now been addressed and that future performance figures should now start to improve.

It was reported that many of the 5 day defects required extensive traffic management, due to the road type and location.  However, in order to improve response times, countywide meetings had been scheduled each month between operations staff and Highways Safety inspectors, to plan the inspection programme for the month and to identify defects requiring traffic management. The countywide traffic management  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

A report was presented by Paul Bond, Head of Legal and Democratic Services, providing an updated (Quarter 4) Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register for the Cabinet Committee to consider and comment upon.

The Cabinet Committee noted that the Register would be presented to the Audit, Risk and Governance Committee on 20^th May 2019. In addition, Corporate Management Team were due to review the Register in March so revisions and format changes may be seen for future meetings.

It was reported that, for this quarter, there were no new entries to the Register and two deletions.  The deletions were:

·  CR10 – 'Adult social provision is adequate and responsive to meet current and future demand'.

·  CR12 – 'Unlawful disclosure of personal or commercial data caused by a deliberate or accidental or technical breach, resulting in a risk to the rights and freedoms of the data subject or the intellectual property of the county council'.

The reasons for the deletions were provided within the report.  It was noted that CR12 would continue to be monitored on a quarterly basis by Corporate Management Team.

It was reported that Corporate Management Team had agreed to a second phase of the service challenge process and that it would be developed to include:

o  Further challenge for some phase 1 services based on updated benchmarking data;

o  Cross cutting themes (Organisational/Finance & Commercial/Health & Care)

The Cabinet Committee noted that phase 2 would be completed by Autumn 2019 and would then be fed into the next budget setting process.

Paul provided an update of the risks that remained on the Register.

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 2.00pm on Tuesday 23^rd April 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 23^rd April 2019 in Committee Room B – The Diamond Jubilee Room, County Hall, Preston.

The meeting is likely to move into private session to consider the following report, and the public will be excluded from that part of the meeting. The reason for this is that the report will involve the disclosure of confidential and/or exempt information as defined within S100A(3) and Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972. A final decision on whether the meeting shall move into private session will be taken during the meeting.

A notice was published in accordance with the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012. No representations have been received in response to this notice.

Resolved: That the Notice of Intention to Conduct Business in Private be noted.

The Committee is asked to consider, whether, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, it considers that the public should be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that there would be a likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the appropriate paragraph of Part 1 of Schedule 12 to the Local Government Act, 1972 as indicated against the heading to the items, and that in all circumstances of the case the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Resolved: That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public should be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following item of business on the grounds that there would be a likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the appropriate paragraph of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, and that in all circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

William Maxwell, Service Development Manager – Waste Management, presented an update report on the performance of Lancashire County Council's waste processing facilities.

Information was provided to the Cabinet Committee on the following:

·  Residual waste – production of refuse derived fuel

·  Residual waste – mass loss operations

·  Residual waste performance summary

·  Recyclables – Materials Recovery Facility

·  Transport contract

·  Financial summary

·  Service challenge

·  Governance

·  Continuous improvement and future processing

Resolved: That the report and the information provided at Appendix 'A' be noted.