Agenda item

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Service – Business Intelligence on Quarter 3 2019/20 performance monitoring.

 

The Cabinet Committee noted that performance indicators, associated targets and other relevant annual performance reports had been agreed by Cabinet on 6 February 2020, following consultation and review with Internal Scrutiny Committee and the Cabinet Committee itself, against the following five objectives of the Corporate Strategy:

 

·  Lancashire will be the place to live

·  Lancashire will be the place to work

·  Lancashire will be the place to prosper

·  Lancashire will be the place to visit

·  Lancashire will be the place where everyone acts responsibly

 

It was reported that monitoring against these indicators would form the content of future quarterly corporate performance monitoring reports to the Cabinet Committee.

 

The agreed performance indicators were set out at Appendix 'A' to the report, together with an indication of frequency of reporting, the responsible directorate, 2020/21 targets along with the current/latest level of performance and RAG rating.

 

Highlights of good performance included:

 

Lancashire will be the place to live

 

·  Percentage of children and young people who received targeted early help support from the Children and Families Wellbeing service which successfully met their identified needs.

·  Percentage of care providers in the community rated as Good or Outstanding – all Community Based provision (Lancashire County Council and non-Lancashire County Council maintained).

 

Lancashire will be the place to work

 

·  Number of e-downloads.

·  Number of volunteers in Libraries.

 

Lancashire will be the place to prosper

 

·  Number of jobs created by Boost.

 

Lancashire will be the place where everyone acts responsibly

 

·  Permanent admissions to residential and nursing care homes per 100,000 population aged 18-64 during the year.

 

However, the following indicators performing below the desired level included:

 

Lancashire will be the place to live

 

·  Average number of working days to repair a Lancashire County Council street lighting fault (including traffic management).

·  Percentage of Health Checks undertaken.

·  Percentage of adults and older people whose desired safeguarding outcomes are met.

 

Lancashire will be the place to work

 

·  Proportion of children excluded from school.

·  Percentage of adults with learning disabilities in employment.

 

Lancashire will be the place to prosper

 

·  Number of Rosebud loans provided to new or existing businesses.

 

Lancashire will be the place where everyone acts responsibly

 

·  Number of working days per full time equivalent lost to sickness absence.

 

Safety carriageway defects  - whilst the overall numbers of safety carriageway defect repairs that failed to meet the target for those defects repaired within 4 hours were small, these all related to those reported by the public. One of the reasons for this was that issues reported on a Saturday would only be picked up the following Monday. Processes were currently being reviewed to ensure these reports were identified and addressed within timescales.

 

Percentage of children achieving a good level of development at the Early Years Foundation Stage – in order to reach the target figure, a number of developments were taking place including an Early Years Peer Review, an Early Years Strategy co-produced with Health, focussed conversation in primary school adviser visits and an Early Years joint evidence statement on closing the gap; this would include SEND performance. The Chair requested that a report be presented to a future CCPI meeting on the outcome of the Early Years Peer Review.

 

Percentage of adults and older people whose desired safeguarding outcomes are met - it was noted that some service users desires were either not achievable or that members of their family may have a different opinion to the service user, which would reflect in the performance figures. In addition, there had been a process change which put more people into this performance indicator. Business Intelligence would review this data issue further.

 

Percentage of Health Checks undertaken - although the percentage of health checks undertaken of the number offered was below target, public health teams had been very pro-active working with gp practices and a high number of invitations had been issued, rather than there being a low take up. Alternative ways to report on Health Checks performance to the Cabinet Committee were being considered as performance against this indicator was good compared to nationally available information.

 

Quality of care homes - it was reported that twenty one of the twenty five Lancashire County Council maintained care homes were rated as 'Outstanding' or 'Good'. A verbal report on the other 4 homes would be provided to Cabinet Committee at their meeting in April.

 

Standards in reading, writing and mathematics (Key Stage 2) - work was ongoing to address the current performance which stood at 64%; the target was 67%. This included talks with Headteachers and Chairs of Governors, the provision of 'challenge questions' for self-evaluation and discussion at adviser visits. A system-led approach was currently underway to focus on improving educational outcomes for children and was being piloted in East Lancashire prior to being rolled out across the county. A report on the progress of this would be requested for a future Cabinet Committee meeting.

 

Percentage of young people in employment, education or training – it was noted that the percentage of young people in employment, education or training had improved significantly and that the indicator was specifically in relation to 16/17 year olds.

 

Permanent exclusions – it was reported that permanent exclusions in secondary schools in Lancashire continued to be higher than national and regional rates. Initiatives to help improve this include Pupil Access Officers continuing to attend the Governors Discipline Committee meetings for all primary, children looked after and special educational needs permanent exclusions to make verbal representations, challenging Headteacher's decisions where appropriate. In addition, prevention work with primary schools was taking place through the development of inclusion hubs. The recommendations following the external review of secondary support and provision were being implemented. It was noted that permanent exclusions had started to be monitored termly and that the majority of schools had no permanent exclusions.

 

Percentage of adults with learning disabilities in employment - the Cabinet Committee were concerned about the length of time it was expected to take to improve this figure; the current performance was 1.96% and the target 3.1%.  The Chair requested that a report be brought back to the April meeting with a request that someone from the service attends In addition, it was requested that the same officer report back to the April meeting on the proportion of adults with learning disabilities who live in their own home – the target figure was 86% but the performance figure was currently 80.9%.

 

Rosebud loans - it was reported that the Rosebud loans scheme was currently underperforming, which was primarily due to the contract moving to a new delivery partner. The Cabinet Committee noted that the new providers were very pro-active and that this performance figure would be monitored.

 

Percentage of older people who were still in their own home 91 days after discharge from hospital into reablement/rehabilitation services – our current performance was 82.7% and the target was 87.4%. It was appreciated that this was a high target figure and that more information had been requested on the performance figure. The Extra Care work which was currently ongoing would hopefully improve the performance figure.

 

Permanent admissions to residential and nursing care homes per 100,000 population aged 65+ - it was noted that the county council had a high number of these permanent admissions. A huge amount of work was being done in relation to this. It was appreciated that families often chose residential care as the first option.

 

Number of working days per full time equivalent lost to sickness absence - there was lots of work ongoing to address this and to reduce this figure (12.28 days). Further detail was requested on both short term and long term absences. Mike Kirby, Director of Strategy and Performance reported that Directors were focussing on sickness absence and that they were working across all services through Staff Surveys, looking at the 3/4 main reasons for sickness absence. Work with managers was also underway on supporting people when they returned to work. There was also more support for people on long term sickness. Separate figures were requested for people working from home and those working in the office and information on whether sickness absence was higher in particular service areas. A further report was requested on this.

 

Resolved: The Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement noted the performance against the indicators.