Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from County Councillors Mark Perks and Jennifer Mein.

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

None declared.

To be confirmed, and signed by the Chair.

Resolved: The minutes of the meeting held on 30 August 2012 were agreed as correct and were signed by the Chairman.

Bob Stott, Director for Universal and Early Support Services and Jonathan Hewitt, Head of Quality and Continuous Improvement (both Directorate for Children and Young People) presented the report.

Bob explained that the report presents good news in relation to the improvement of results for schools below the Floor Standard.  Bob also explained that the Directorate for Children and Young People has worked closely with schools near the Floor Standard and the performance of those schools has increased.

The past two years has seen a change in the statutory role of the local authority in supporting school improvement. During this time schools have been given greater autonomy and the statutory role of the local authority School Improvement Partner, which monitored and challenged all schools and helped to set school level achievement targets, has been disestablished. At the same time more challenging performance standards have been created at the end of Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 and a more demanding Inspection framework has been introduced to help raise standards and improve the quality of provision.

In the light of these changes the relationship between schools and the local authority is increasingly important and Lancashire has developed a very strong partnership with schools over the past decade with schools buying into School Improvement Services and the Schools Forum supporting schools in difficulty where appropriate. Currently over 99% of primary schools, over 75% of secondary and special schools, and all nursery schools buy into Lancashire's school improvement services through a school service guarantee which provides support and challenge as well as monitoring school performance in partnership with schools. This programme of support also makes use of strong schools in Lancashire to offer school to school support.

Jonathan went through the figures attached to the report at Appendix 'A' as follows:

Primary schools

Table 1: Performance of pupils in Primary schools over the past 3 years where below 60% of pupils achieved Level 4+ in English and Mathematics in 2008/9. This is based on tracking the results of the 74 primary schools that fell below the current Floor Standard in 2009 over the past 3 years.

*Results are based on Teacher Assessment

The data in table 1 indicates:

·  Year on year improvement in both attainment and progress over 3 years

·  Attainment averaging above 70% in 2012

·  A substantial increase in attainment in the first year (almost +15%)

·  A substantial increase in progress in the first year in both English (+8.3%) and Maths (+5%)

·  A  sustained increase in progress and attainment with these schools continuing to improve their attainment at a faster rate than the Lancashire average in the third year

·  A 25%+ increase in attainment over three years

·  A rate of improvement that is around 3 times the increase for all schools which is around 8%

·  Sustained improvement  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Barbara Lewis, County Head Support, Planning and Review, Adult and Community Services Directorate presented the report.

Barbara explained that in line with self directed support, giving customers more choice and control, a working group made up of representatives from Personal Social Care, Care Navigation and Finance within the Adult and Community Services Directorate has been looking in to how we can deliver support to carers in more flexible ways offering them choice over the services they receive as we do with service users.

The work of the group has been delayed in 2012 due to the review of the structure within Personal Social Care (PSC) and IT developments. The PSC structure was reviewed in May 2012 and revisions agreed. Implementation of the revised structure has been dependent upon a recruitment exercise and will take place on 1 November 2012. In addition, the replacement for the current IT social care records system will need to be in place to effectively pilot and deliver any proposed changes. The date for the replacement of the IT system has not yet been agreed.

The group has consulted with carers at the Lancashire Carers Forum to seek their views to inform the preparation of a proposal for a scheme which would replace current Short Break Vouchers as it is felt that the current scheme limits the choice of options for users and carers to traditional services. The proposal will recommend that a "fund", of an identified amount of money, based upon the current costs of respite vouchers, is held by the County Council, to be drawn on as services identified in the support plan are purchased. Details of how the fund could be used would be detailed in each individual carers support plan.

The new Carers Break Fund would:

• Allow service users and carers to exert full choice and control as to how they receive and use the monies allocated for carers breaks which fits with the personalisation agenda.
• Assist with more accurate monitoring of spend as the systems would be updated as the service is booked rather than dependent upon providers processing requests for payments.
• Remove the need to print and issue vouchers at the beginning of each financial year as the fund can be reviewed and allocated in line with assessments and reviews.

Issues that need to be addressed to implement the changes are:

• Configuration of IT systems which may not be possible in view of the current system replacement project.
• Decision with regard to the charging policy options for service users and carers.
• Planning for a pilot in a geographical area to test out the proposed changes. The proposal is due to be presented to the Directorate's senior management team in November 2012, however, it is felt that due to the current IT replacement project, it would not be feasible to introduce the Carers Break Fund until the new IT systems are in place.

Barbara explained that advice given indicates that the new IT system would likely be ready in late  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Tony Pounder, Head of Commissioning (East Lancashire), Adult and Community Services Directorate presented the report.

Tony explained that since the Cabinet Committee's meeting on 30 August 2012, the Adult and Community Services Directorate has considered results of further analysis of Help Direct data and the wider context.  This has been with the purpose of identifying evidence which might explain why the volume of Help Direct contacts and transactions were below target expectations during the first quarter and also what the potential impact may have been. 

Firstly, the Directorate considered the potential for "seasonal variations". 

The monthly numbers of contacts over the last year was examined for Help Direct, also comparing it with Welfare Rights and Care Connect activity by looking at "Average Contacts for the Services per Working Day" and counting:

• Welfare Rights - where information only was provided ie. not including referrals for further work,
• and contacts to Care Connect - where information only was provided and ISSIS (Integrated Social Services Information System) updates and new assessments were not provided.

Secondly, the Directorate examined providers' comparative performances again. Close examination of the target figures for each of the 4 providers for the first quarter does, however, show that one Help Direct provider "over performed", whilst the other three underperformed.  The greatest underperformance was by one provider who had a temporary shortfall in management capacity during that period, but this has now been rectified and their performance has improved significantly back to near target levels. 

Thirdly, the Directorate has also considered the evidence available from Mosaic concerning the customer base for Help Direct.  Mosaic is a classification and marketing tool developed by Commissioners which is increasingly used to increase understanding of target populations and who is actually accessing services.  Although there is a spread across the population of people using Help Direct, the four groups with the highest level of use of the service is estimated to be:

• Lower income workers in urban terraces in often diverse areas 
• Residents of small and mid-sized towns with strong local roots
• Owner occupiers in older-style housing in ex-industrial areas
• Elderly people relying on state support

Based on a snapshot survey this appears a similar pattern for both June 2011 and June 2012 and so Mosaic offers no immediate evidence that the pattern of contacts from different socio-economic groups changed significantly from one year to the next. 

Finally, further consideration has also been given to the complexity of work that Help Direct providers are now undertaking. The evidence is qualitative, based on Help Direct providers' accounts about the increasingly complex and difficult circumstances of the people they now see compared to the early days of the programme.  However, we have no quantitative data which would give us a reliable measure of the "complexity" of case work and so while it is plausible that more time spent on interventions in more complex situations might leave less capacity for dealing with simple enquiries, there is no way of us verifying this.  However,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

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.

No items of Urgent Business were presented.

The next meeting of the Cabinet Committee will be held on Monday 22 November 2012 at 2.00 pm in Cabinet Room B, County Hall, Preston

The date of the next meeting of the Cabinet Committee was confirmed as Monday 22 November 2012 at 2.00pm in Cabinet Room 'B', County Hall, Preston.