Agenda and minutes

No apologies for absence were received.

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 4^th October 2018 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

Verbal update.

Paul Bond, Head of Legal and Democratic Services provided a verbal update on the current Brexit position, and what the county council was doing in preparation for either a deal or no deal scenario.

The UK and the EU had prepared a withdrawal agreement about how the UK would leave the EU, in addition to a political declaration, which gave an overview of what the UK and EU's relationship would be in the longer term.

Paul reported that leaders of the 27 other EU countries had signed off the withdrawal agreement and political declaration, and that Teresa May needed to persuade her MPs to back it: a vote would take place on 11 December 2018.  If the deal was approved, it would also need to be approved by the European Parliament.

Should Parliament reject the deal, the default position would be for the UK to leave without a deal.  In this instance, MPs would have 28 days to suggest a way forward which may include some form of re-negotiation.

In light of the above, Laura Sales, Director of Corporate Services was taking forward a piece of work looking at the impact of what both a deal and a no deal Brexit would have on Lancashire.  A cross-Directorate Officer Working Group had been set up and was looking at a number of areas to assess how these potential impacts could be felt locally.  The Working Group was focussing on the following areas, which Paul provided details on:

·  The Lancashire economy including future funding;

·  The county council as an employer;

·  Community cohesion and civil contingencies;

·  Ports and borders;

·  Citizen's rights.

The Cabinet Committee noted that other work streams included the Lancashire environment, procurement and regulatory services.

It was reported that, whilst the Government had emphasised that the negotiated deal was its preferred option, it had recently published a number of technical papers to ensure businesses and citizens understood what was required in a 'no-deal' scenario.  In some cases, there were direct implications for local authority services and programmes.  It was reported that, as part of the work mentioned above, the Director of Corporate Services would be assessing these technical papers.

Resolved: The Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement noted that an updated report would be presented to them in due course.

A report was presented by Paul Bond, Head of Legal and Democratic Services, providing an updated (Quarter 3) 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 next Audit, Risk and Governance Committee on 28^th January 2019.

It was reported that, for this quarter, there were two new entries and one deletion.  The two new entries were:

CR13 – Children's Social Care: 'Increase in demand, including rise in number of contacts and referrals, and an increase in Children Looked After numbers'. It was noted that the number of children looked after had continued to increase, and that similar and larger increases had been reported both nationally and regionally. The Cabinet Committee were informed that the service had put several mitigating actions in place and was undertaking demand analysis work to inform the next steps.

CR14 – 'Intermediate care for older people in a residential setting'. It was reported that a review of the Lancashire intermediate care system was underway and would include consideration of the best practice model for each service area, including community beds. Councillor Gooch reported that three service providers, currently contracted to the county council, would be delivering the service. County Councillor Turner informed the Cabinet Committee that he had recently attended the new Board Meeting which had been set up to monitor progress, and reported that the ongoing work on the review had received positive feedback.

The deletion was:

CR9 – 'Discharge of patients from hospital into their own home or enablements/short term care in a safe and timely manner'.  It was reported to the Cabinet Committee that performance for this had improved dramatically and therefore it was no longer a business critical risk. However, it was noted that the risk would be retained on the service register for the purposes of managing winter pressures.

It was reported that discharge planning started to take place as soon as people were admitted to hospital.  The delayed transfer of care figure had reduced by 43% and it was noted that work was ongoing in relation to prescription waiting times.

Paul provided an update of the risks that remained on the Register and an explanation of the scores key.

Resolved:  That the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement note the updated Corporate Risk and Opportunity Register.

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Service, Business Intelligence, providing an overview of performance activity across the council for Quarter 2 of 2018/19.

Education and Children's Services

Referrals to Children's Social Care had continued to increase and around 26% of assessments completed in Quarter 2 had taken over 45 days to complete.  In addition, the number of children with child protection plans had increased by 10.6%, giving a rate of 54.5 per 10,000 population, which was significantly higher than the national rate, and the number of children looked after had increased again when compared to the previous quarter.

However, it was reported that average social worker caseloads remained comparatively low, and that the number of first time entrants to the youth justice system and re-offending levels in Lancashire had continued to reduce; these figures were lower than regional and national rates.

There had been an increase in the average time between a child entering care and moving in with their adoptive family, but the current rolling figure of 419 days was rated good in comparison to the latest national figure. County Councillor Green pointed out that the increase in days could be due to circumstances out of the county council's control, and asked that more information be provided to Cabinet Committee on what had caused the delays.

Provisional data published by the Department for Education for 2017/18 showed an improvement in the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Key Stage 2.  In relation to GCSEs, Lancashire's performance had improved on the previous year, and both the Attainment 8 score per pupil and the Progress 8 scores were currently similar to the national rates.  However, it was agreed that Lancashire should be aiming to be better than the national average.

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Growth, Environment, Transport and Community Services

It was reported that the average number of days taken to repair street lighting faults had reduced.  The Cabinet Committee noted that data relating to the new Highways policy would be included in the Corporate Performance Monitoring Report for Quarter 3 of 2018/19.

County Councillor Iddon reported that LED street lighting saved the county council around £200k per year. County Councillor Iddon agreed to look into County Councillor Crompton's query on what percentage of Lancashire was covered by LED street lighting.

In response to a query, County Councillor Atkinson informed the Cabinet Committee that fly tipping figures in Lancashire had reduced and that new rules were due out in relation to fly tipping, in an attempt to reduce the figures further.

Tonnage figures for re-used, recycled and composted waste at the Household Waste Recycling Centres for both Lancashire and the districts were requested.  It was noted that the county council had saved money at the Household Waste Recycling Centres due to the service being in-house and the reduction in opening hours at some of the smaller centres.

In relation to the libraries and museums figures, County Councillor Buckley asked how these  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

A report was presented by Sarah Jenkins, Head of Service – Customer Access Service.  A revised page 48 was circulated to Cabinet Committee Members.

The Customer Access Service delivered the first point of contact for telephone, email and social media interactions for 28 Lancashire County Council services, handling over 1.1 million customer interactions per year. This equated to approximately two thirds of all customer contacts coming into the council.

It was reported that the reduction in contacts received was an indication that we may be starting to realise achievements in the ongoing campaign to assist appropriate channel shift for services, allowing effective self-service through the website.

The Cabinet Committee noted there was a difference in the number of telephone calls received to those answered.  It was explained that this could be due to people putting the phone down before it had been answered, but that many of these people would either ring back or email in.  There had also been a drop in the number of telephone calls received since the previous year.  It was noted that lots of work had been done with Children's Services which had reduced the amount of repeat calls; we were also looking to do this work with Adult Services.  In addition, more people were using self-service through the website.  County Councillor Khan informed the Cabinet Committee that she had received positive feedback from constituents on the email service.

Sarah reported that the Customer Access Service had taken part in an Association of Directors of Adult Social Services Peer Review in November, to help identify best practice and potential opportunities for improved working practices, and that the Service had received excellent feedback.  In addition, for Adult Safeguarding, the accuracy and timeliness of Customer Access had recently been singled out for praise by external consultants, who had been commissioned to review the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub.

It was noted that the AskHR Service attracted one of the highest numbers of contacts.  As part of the Customer Access savings programme, 7 full time equivalent posts had been reduced in April 2018 for the AskHR Service, and temporary funding from within the Customer Access Service budget had been agreed until December 2018. The project had focussed on the online uptake of HR enquiries and customer self-service, to reduce the volume of HR contacts.

In relation to the Blue Badge Scheme, improvements had been made in application processing time and waiting times.  In addition, the Department for Transport had recently undertaken a consultation which had resulted in a decision to extend the criteria to those with non-physical disabilities.

It was reported that Customer Access savings delivered to date totalled £1,005,000.  This saving included a figure of £58,000 to transfer 2.50 full time equivalent posts to the Emergency Duty Team, as part of the Customer Access Service redesign which had been implemented in September 2018.

As part of the Genesys Programme Phase 2, Sarah reported that emphasis would be put on more automation, where appropriate, and it was reported that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

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 2.30pm on Tuesday 26^th February 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 2.30pm on Tuesday 26^th February 2019 in Committee Room B – The Diamond Jubilee Room, County Hall, Preston.