Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from County Councillor Green, County Councillor Khan, Mike Kirby and Paul Bond.

Temporary changes

County Councillor Goulthorp replaced County Councillor Rear and County Councillor Towneley at this meeting.

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 held on 25^th November 2021 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

Matters Arising

County Councillor Riggott asked whether comparative sickness levels in other local authorities were available, as requested by the Chair at the last meeting.

Deborah Barrow, Head of Service – Human Resources confirmed that this would be referred to during discussion of the sickness absence part of the Corporate Performance Update report.

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Business Intelligence, on the performance update for Quarter 3 2021/22.

Appendix 'A' provided the latest performance updates available against the agreed Key Performance Indicators, along with an overview of some additional service development areas relating to each corporate priority.

The Cabinet Committee noted the highlights of good performance and those indicators performing below the desired level and/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:

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

·  John Morrissy – Director of Organisational Development and Change

·  Martin Farran – Director of Adult Care and Provider Services

·  John Davies – Head of Service – Highways

·  Andy Walker – Head of Service - Business Growth

·  Deborah Barrow – Head of Service – Human Resources

·  Steve Scott – Head of Service – Waste Management

Specific areas were discussed as follows:

Delivering better services

Safety carriageway defects – although performance had improved for emergency and urgent repairs, it was still slightly below target. All categories had seen a high number of defects being reported. For repairs completed within both the 5 and 20 day timescales, performance was above target.  A continuing high number of defects was expected going forward but plans were being put in place to reduce the reliance on sub-contractors.

Street lighting fault repair – performance was above target for both Non-Traffic Management and Traffic Management lamp-out faults.

County Councillor Edwards highlighted the excellent efforts of the Communications Team to improve the ability for members of the public and elected members to report faults. County Councillor Edwards stated that an increase in lamp-out faults was also anticipated and that a refreshed protocol to test street lighting columns had been put in place.

County Councillor Buckley wished to place on record his thanks for the inclusion of actual figures which helped to put the percentages into context.

Sickness absence – it was reported that the impact of Covid-19 was largely responsible for the changing patterns and levels of sickness absence, which had been experienced in other councils/organisations. Covid sickness absences resulted in an increase in an overall short term absence. Information provided showed that the number of Covid absence cases per month had increased by 87% from 418 in Quarter 2 to 782 in Quarter 3. Two thirds of sickness absence was long term. Absences of four weeks or longer were recorded as long term absence. The top three reasons for absence were mental health, musculoskeletal and Covid.

It was reported that Lancashire had recently joined the Local Government Association Benchmarking Club which would enable the council to compare sickness absence levels against other local authorities in future. In the meantime, it was reported that, through contacts and checking website information, the council's sickness absence challenges due to Covid-19 had also been experienced in other county councils, and past experience had shown the council absences  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Business Intelligence, providing an updated (Quarter 4) Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register and Summary Risk Profile for the Cabinet Committee to consider and comment upon.

The risks and opportunities had been updated using information provided through directorate risk registers and by individual directors. The main changes were the:

· Removal of the risk relating to SEND following the assessment of improvement in September 2021.

· Family safeguarding - the risk confidence RAG rating for this risk had changed from green to amber. An audit had identified that there was some inconsistency in the quality of workbooks completed by social workers. Steps had now been put in place to improve practice and additional performance monitoring had also been implemented.

The updated Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register was provided at Appendix 'A' and the amended Corporate Summary Risk Profile summary was provided at Appendix 'B'.

As this report was considered in detail by the Audit, Risk and Governance Committee, the Chair asked that a summary be produced for future CCPI meetings.

County Councillor Riggott asked for the Summary Risk Profile to be re-formatted for future meetings. In particular, where the 'direction of travel' was listed as positive for all areas, it was not clear what this meant looking at the current and target risk ratings.

County Councillor Buckley asked for sickness absence levels be added to Risk ID Corp 1 – Reshaping the County Council: Our Improvement Journey and that the risk of Hostile Cyber Threats be considered as a Part II item for future meetings.

Bearing in mind the recent outage, the Chair asked that the issue of business continuity be considered as an additional risk.

Resolved:

The Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement noted:

(i)  The Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register.

(ii)  The Corporate Summary Risk Profile.

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 on Tuesday 5^th July 2022 at 2.00pm.

The next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement would be held at 2.00pm on Tuesday 5^th July 2022.