Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillor Iddon.

County Councillor O'Toole replaced County Councillor Green.

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 26 February 2019 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

Powerpoint presentation.

Alan Wilton, Head of Service – Health, Safety and Resilience, gave a presentation on Withdrawal from the European Union – Lancashire County Council Preparations.

It was reported that, since January 2019, the county council had been actively making preparations/gathering necessary information, should the UK leave the European Union with no deal. A range of in-house and multi agency meetings, teleconferences and reporting had been put in place and details of these were provided to the Cabinet Committee. A Lancashire County Council Brexit Group had been established to have an overview of this activity, comprising officers representing services in relation to Regulation, Economy, Communities, Supplies and People. However, following the agreement to extend Article 50 and the UK's membership of the EU until 31 October 2019, most of the reporting had been suspended with expected re-activation in September 2019.

Details of the key Lancashire County Council outcomes were provided to the Cabinet Committee. The Cabinet Committee noted that Lancashire was well-placed for a 'no deal' scenario, due to the work which had been carried out and the information sharing that had taken place. In addition, county council services were not reporting any major specific issues which could overly affect delivery of services to residents.

Alan Wilton answered questions from Members on the presentation.

It was reported that the Lancashire County Council Brexit Group would continue to meet monthly and would link back into the regional and national reporting structures and meetings once these resumed.

Resolved: That the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement note the presentation on Lancashire County Council's preparations for withdrawn from the European Union.

Tony Pounder, Director of Adult Services, presented a report on the Adult Social Care Survey 2017-18. This was a national survey that had been used to collect the view of adult social care service users since 2010/11.

It was reported that the main purpose of the survey was to provide assured, benchmarked local data to support local decision making in a challenging financial climate. The survey provided an overall quality of life index and intelligence, to identify if different types of service users experienced different outcomes, and whether services were meeting service users' needs.

A stratified random sample of 1,164 people had been selected from the eligible population, who were adult social care users in receipt of long term support services, fully or partially funded or managed by the local authority, following a full assessment of need.

The four strata were:

Learning disabilities – all ages

Non learning disabilities aged 18-64

Non learning disabilities aged 65+ in residential and nursing care

Non learning disabilities aged 65+ receiving community based services

Service users were asked questions in relation to the following:

·  Overall satisfaction with care and support

·  Having choice over care and support

·  Social care related quality of life

·  How easy/difficult it was to find information and advice about support, services or benefits

·  Health

·  Doing things for themselves

·  Getting around in their local area

·  Type of help and support received

·  Suitability of home

·  Demographics

Lancashire's scores for the following Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework indicators were provided in the report:

·  (1A) Social Care - related quality of life

·  (1B) The proportion of people who use services who have control over their daily Life

·  (1I part 1) service users - Proportion of people who use services and their carers, who reported that they had as much social contact as they would like

·  (1J) Adjusted Social care-related quality of life – impact of Adult Social Care services

·  (3A) Overall satisfaction of people who use service with their care and support

·  (3D1) The proportion of people who use services and carers who find it easy to find information about services

·  (4A) The proportion of people who use services who feel safe

·  (4B) The proportion of people who use services who say that those services have made them feel safe and secure

A year on year comparison in Lancashire from 2015/16 was provided, and the Committee noted that there had been a statistically significant increase in the proportion of people who use services who felt safe (76% in 2017/18 and 70% in 2016/17).

Details of Lancashire's scores compared to other North West councils were provided, along with comparisons to the 15 other councils in the Lancashire peer group.

It was reported that Lancashire's results were very similar to all the North West authorities and that significant improvements in some areas had been seen compared to the previous year.

Tony Pounder answered questions from Members on the survey.

County Councillor Driver wished to place on record his thanks to all officers involved with the survey for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

A report was presented by Michael Walder, Senior Business Intelligence Manager, providing an overview of performance activity across the Council for quarter 4 of 2018/19 and, where appropriate/available, compared 2018/19 year-end performance with 2017/18.

Education and Children's Services

It was reported that the timeliness of undertaking children's social care assessments had improved in quarter 4. However, assessments completed during 2018/19 that had taken over 45 days to complete was still higher than all comparator averages, although this had been an improvement on the previous year. The number and rate of children looked after continued to increase. County Councillor Williamson reported that there were different reasons for different parts of the county for this, and confirmed that plans were in place to address these issues including the setting up of monthly, locally based panels to find children/young people permanent placements.

Quarter 4 had recorded an increase in the average time taken between a child entering care and moving in with their adoptive family. However, Lancashire's figure was better than the latest national average figure.

There were more first time entrants to the youth justice system in Lancashire for the last reported period, although the Lancashire rate remained lower than that nationally and regionally.

It was reported that attainment had improved amongst pupils at Key Stages 2 and 4 in 2017/18. Although the percentage of absence levels in primary, secondary and special schools had gone up slightly, the Committee noted that this was still better than the England average.  In relation to exclusions, it was reported that these were being monitored termly.

Growth, Environment, Transport and Community Services

There had been an improvement in the average number of working days to repair a Lancashire County Council street lighting fault (including traffic management) compared to last year. However, the time taken to repair some highway defects was above the number of days targeted. It was noted that the countywide traffic management contract was now underway, which should increase the number of contractors available to provide traffic management, thus improving the response time. The issues with the Highways Asset Management System seemed to have now been resolved.

Where problems had been reported with specific roads, County Councillor Parkinson queried whether checks were carried out to see if the roads were still under the 5 year guarantee. Michael White, Highway Regulation Manager confirmed that this was tracked by the Asset Team.

Visitor numbers to libraries and museums, in addition to e-book downloads and library public issues had increased in quarter 4 of 2018/19, in line with expected seasonal trends.

Adult Services and Public Health

It was reported that the proportion of adults receiving direct payments had increased again and that Lancashire was higher than the national average. High numbers of people were receiving reablement and effectiveness was high. The Committee noted that waiting lists in adult social care were improving, especially for those waiting for Occupational Therapy assessments, and that there had been an increase in the quality rating of Lancashire care homes and community  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

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.

It was reported that Corporate Management Team had completed the annual review of the register and that it had now been updated to reflect changing priorities and was aligned to the Annual Governance Statement. The register had been presented to the Audit, Risk and Governance Committee on 20 May 2019.

There were a number of key changes and updates to the Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register detailed in the report, 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 2.00pm on Thursday 12^th September 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 Thursday 12^th September 2019 in Committee Room B – The Diamond Jubilee Room, County Hall, Preston.