Agenda and minutes

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Venue: Committee Room 'A' - The Tudor Room, County Hall, Preston. View directions

Contact: Joanne Mansfield  Tel: 01772 534284, Email:  joanne.mansfield@lancashire.gov.uk

Media

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from County Councillor Gooch, County Councillor Edwards, County Councillor Rear, County Councillor Towneley,  County Councillor Turner, Paul Bond and Mike Kirby.

2.

Disclosure of Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests

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.

Minutes:

No pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests were disclosed.

3.

Minutes of the Meeting held on 9 September 2021 pdf icon PDF 335 KB

Minutes:

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting held on 9th September 2021 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

4.

Corporate Strategy Monitoring report – Quarter 2 2021/22 performance update pdf icon PDF 131 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Business Intelligence, on the performance update for Quarter 2 2021/22.

 

County Councillor Buckley pointed out an error on the report which should have read '….new corporate priorities for 2021-2025'.

 

Following Cabinet's agreement of the new corporate priorities for 2021-2025 on 7 October 2021, the Cabinet Committee noted that the report had been reformatted and updated to monitor performance against each of the new corporate priorities (delivering better services; protecting our environment; supporting economic growth and caring for the vulnerable).

 

Existing key performance indicators (KPIs) were now reported under each new corporate priority, along with service developments which contributed to the delivery of those priorities. Appendix 'A' provided the latest performance updates. To supplement this performance information, and to give an overview of other recent work and notable achievements, Appendix 'B' set out a list of national award nominations that the county council had been shortlisted for since June 2020.

 

The Cabinet Committee noted the highlights of good performance and those indicators performing below the desired leveland/or due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, as detailed in the report.

 

The following officers attended the meeting and provided details and updates on their respective service areas:

 

·  Tony Pounder – Director of Adult Services

·  Dave Carr – Director of Policy, Commissioning and Children's Health

·  John Morrissy – Director of Organisational Development and Change

·  John Davies – Head of Service – Highways

·  Andy Walker – Head of Business Growth

·  Sue Lott – Head of Service – Community North and Health and Prisons

Specific areas were discussed as follows:

 

Delivering better services

 

Safety carriageway defects – although the emergency and urgent repairs were still categorised as 'red' in the RAG rating, it was reported that actual numbers of these not repaired within the targeted timeframe were relatively small with a total number of 255 defects reported and 220 repaired within the timeframe. It should be noted that, in some of these instances, the defects had been attended to within the timeframe but not recorded until the following day and there was no facility to backdate them. Most of the defects had been recorded under the 10 and 20 day category and performance in this area was good.

 

September figures had shown improvement as increased resources had been deployed to respond to increased demand, although it was noted that the number of defects would continue to increase as we moved towards winter.

 

Street lighting fault repair – although performance had significantly improved compared to this time last year, it was noted that pressure would be put on this service due to more faults being reported in the darker nights

 

County Councillor Buckley asked that actual numbers be provided within the report, in order to understand what the percentages meant in absolute terms.

 

Sickness absence there had been a steady rise in the sickness absence rate per FTE which had increased each month since May 2021, although the number of new long-term  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.

Corporate Risk & Opportunity Register Quarter 3 2021/22 pdf icon PDF 239 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Business Intelligence,providing an updated (Quarter 3) Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register and Summary Risk profile for the Cabinet Committee to consider and comment upon.

 

This was the first time the Cabinet Committee had reviewed the Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register, following its suspension as a result of the pandemic. The Committee noted that the current risk entries in the corporate register reflected the governance issues for 2021/22, as set out in the Annual Governance Statement 2020/21.

 

It was noted that, following a review of directorate risk registers, CMT had included an additional risk on the corporate register that focussed on demand for client led services, together with some opportunities. A link to the Risk Management vodcast, which was part of the 'Councillors' Learning Quarter', had been circulated to the Cabinet Committee in advance of the meeting.

 

The updated Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register was provided at Appendix 'A'.

 

A Summary Risk Profile had also been introduced. This document:

 

·  Showed target dates by which the risk rating would become acceptable.

·  Allowed progress monitoring on a quarterly basis (using RAG rating) to highlight and provide the information on which management decisions could be made.

·  Provided clearer accountability for actions.

 

The Summary Risk Profile was provided at Appendix 'B'.

 

In relation to the risk CORP3 – Special Educational Needs & Disability Improvement Plan, Dave Carr confirmed that the 12 month monitoring visit from the Department for Education and NHS England had taken place at the end of September and that they had been satisfied with the  progress being made. The Chair wished to place on record her thanks to the SEND team for their phenomenal performance in working to address areas in the SEND Partnership Improvement Plan.

 

In relation tothe risk CORP7 – Impact on Community & Services, Tony Pounder reported that the workforce shortage had exacerbated concerns in relation to budget pressures and poor outcomes. Tony thanked Cabinet for their support in approving the November Cabinet report reviewing the fees paid to the Homecare Framework providers, to try to alleviate some risks over winter in the deterioration of the workforce.

 

As this report was presented to and considered in detail by the Audit, Risk & Governance Committee, it was agreed that a summary would suffice for future CCPI meetings.

 

Resolved:

 

The Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement noted:

 

(i)  The Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register as set out at Appendix 'A'.

 

(ii)  The Corporate Summary Risk Profile as set out at Appendix 'B'.

6.

Statutory Social Care Annual Report - Complaints and Customer Feedback 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 28 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

A report was presented by Angela Esslinger, Complaints and Appeals Manager, providing the Statutory Social Care Annual Report on Complaints and Customer Feedback for 2020/21.

 

It was reported that complaints represented just 1% of all active adult social care and children's social care cases throughout Lancashire in 2020/21.

 

Adult Social Care

 

Complaints had reduced from 2019/20 from 536 to 420. This service had had a year on year increase for many years although it should be noted that complaints had been paused for 3 months in 2020 due to Covid-19. The two most frequent subjects of complaints were in relation to support planning and finance.

 

An extensive list of learning points was provided in the report, which were mainly surrounding communication. It was noted that a Shared Learning Panel had recently been established, in order to identify the themes and root causes of complaints, and to cascade learning across the council.

 

Compliments had increased by 8%; these were mainly in relation to equipment/adaptations and new processes were in place to highlight compliments.

 

It was reported that, as the Ombudsman also upheld complaints that the county council had previously upheld, the actual uphold rate for adult social care complaints was 15%.

 

Children & Young People and Children's Social Care

 

Statutory complaints had reduced from 252 in 2019/20 to 205 in 2020/21 and non-statutory complaints from 139 in 2019/20 to 90 in 2020/21, most likely due to the 3 month pausing of complaints due to Covid-19. The proportion of complaints being resolved early in the complaints journey was 52% in 2020/21, compared to 45% in 2019/20. It was reported that lessons learnt were very similar to those in adult social care, mainly around miscommunication with families involved with the service. Further details on learning were provided in the report.

 

It was noted that complaints about the Inclusion Service were classed as non-statutory if children's social care services were not involved. These complaints had increased from 36 in 2019/20 to 139 in 2020/21, although it was thought this was due to the new processes in place to capture these complaints.

 

In 2020/21, the Ombudsman had received a total of 55 enquiries in relation to children's social care, Inclusion and Education Services in Lancashire, compared to 74 in 2019/20. Of these 55, a total of 48 decisions had been made by the Ombudsman and only 19% of these decisions had been upheld, making an actual uphold rate of 10% due to the Ombudsman also upholding complaints that had previously been upheld by the county council.

 

In relation to the majority of complaints being about mis-communication, the Chair pointed out that as systems were complicated for both adults and children's services, these needed to be explained properly to all our customers.

 

Some complaints had been received around the content of emails shared with customers containing unprofessional dialogue between internal departments. County Councillor Buckley stated that a message needed to be sent out to emphasise the importance of always using professional language in all written and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.

Urgent Business

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.

Minutes:

There were no items of Urgent Business.

 

8.

Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement will be held on Thursday 10 March 2022 at 2.00pm.

Minutes:

The next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement would be held at 2.00pm on Thursday 10th March 2022.