Agenda item

Purpose:

1. To report quarter 2 progress against the key accountable measures and activities for West Berkshire Council for 2011/12.
2. To report by exception those measures / activities not achieved / expected to be achieved and cite remedial action that is being taken.

In introducing Item 8 Jason Teal advised that the purpose of the report was to provide an update on progress against the Council’s key accountable measures and activities for Quarter 2 of the Municipal Year 2011/2012.

Jason Teal informed the Commission that of the 39 key measures, (33 of which were reported quarterly) 7 were signposted as amber – i.e. behind anticipated performance, but expect to achieve the target by year end. These were:

·      Children’s social care assessments conducted on time;

·      The level of commissioned early intervention services in the Children and Young People directorate;

·      People presented as homeless who were prevented from being homeless;

·      The proportion of young people who were not in education, employment or training

·      The proportion of upheld planning appeals;

·      Calls to the Contact Centre answered within 30 seconds;

·      Users’ ratings of the Contact Centre.

Three targets were reporting as red (would not be achieved) in Quarter 2:

·      The proportion of adult social care service users receiving self directed support;

·      Pupils gaining 5+ high grades at GCSE;

·      Adopting the Local Development Framework by March 2012.

The following specific returns were discussed:

·      The number of people presenting as homeless who were prevented from being homeless. The Commission was of the collective view that this indicator should have been reported as red.

·      Young people 16 – 19 who were not in education, employment or training (NEET). The data was provided from the Connexions Service but Members were of the view that this data would be difficult to track and wished to know whether the expected drop in the number of NEETs predicted for November actually occurred.

·      The percentage of pupils gaining 5+ GCSE grades A* - C including English and Mathematics. Clarification was required as to whether there was a correlation between the recognised national shortage in skilled mathematics teachers and the drop in performance in the subject locally and whether the actions taken to address the matter were likely to be effective. These actions should be able to be tracked in future years.

·      The number of service user and carers receiving Self Directed Support (including Personal Budgets). The cost of amending the RAISE system to provide electronic records for Personal Budgets was not articulated.

·      The level of commissioned early intervention services in the Children and Young People Directorate. The figures quoted in the return were unclear and clarification was required.

·      The number of people entering the Youth Justice system. It was accepted that the low numbers being reported were part of a national trend but it was not clear to Members the reasons for it.

·      Adoption of the Local Development Framework’s Core Strategy. It was understood that the Core Strategy would not be re-examined in public until March which made the achievement of this target impossible. Although the achievement of the target was outside the Council’s direct control, at the time the target was set it was believed that it was.

·      The proportion of planning appeals which were upheld compared to the national average. The return did not show whether the actual number of appeals was reducing.

·      The number of planning applications determined within the government guidelines. Although the Commission recognised that the Head of Planning and Countryside had previously given an explanation about the causes of the drop in performance and Members understood the action that had been taken, it was not clear from the report whether performance could be sufficiently recovered to achieve the set targets by year-end.

·      Contact Centre calls answered within 30 seconds. The cause of the dip in performance was understood to be an increase in call volumes relating to benefit claims and the move to an alternate weekly bin collection service. The Commission sought reassurance that the target was still achievable within the Municipal Year.

·      Proportion of customers rating Contact Centre customer care as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. Clarification was sought on the methodology used to determine performance and the quantum of the sample size as it appeared as if a small number of adverse comments were apparently able to skew the results disproportionately.

Members of the Commission then discussed the process for the examination of the performance reports. Nick Carter explained that Corporate Board collectively considered performance reports on a quarterly basis, although individual directors would have updates on their directorate’s indicators more frequently. Heads of Service reported to Corporate Board which then determined whether to accept any proposed actions that might be taken to address under-performance or whether the reporting officer should be directed to re-think their proposals. All the decisions were, in the end, judgements by either the Heads of Service or Corporate Board. The Chief Executive recognised that there was scope for more realism in the returns and more recognition of the impact of external factors.

As a relatively long period of time had elapsed between the production of the statistics and their examination by the OSMC, it was agreed that more value would be added to its participation if more current updates could be received. In order to avoid creating an undue bureaucratic burden, the focus should be on those targets which the reports highlighted were at ‘amber’ and consequently could still be influenced to get back on track. This would be particularly true where insufficient detail was provided in the returns by officers.

The Chairman thanked Jason Teal for his participation in helping the Commission understand the information presented and its role in monitoring performance. He reminded the Commission that its role was not only to highlight where performance was poor but it was also to suggest the actions that might be taken to gain improvement. He concluded that it should be borne in mind that most of the indicators were in fact ‘green.’

RESOLVED that:

(1)               the Head of the Education Service should advise the Commission whether the anticipated November drop in the number of NEETs actually happened;

(2)               the Head of the Education Service should be invited to attend the Commission to explain the causes of and effect of the measures taken to address the drop in performance in GCSE mathematics;

(3)               the Head of Adult Social Care should advise the Commission of the costs associated with the required upgrade to the RAISE system and the progress made on the introduction of Personal Budgets;

(4)               the Head of Children’s Services should advise the Commission of the reasons behind the drop in numbers of young people entering the Youth Justice System.

(5)               the Head of Planning and Countryside should advise the Commission:

(a)               of the actual numbers of planning appeals, in comparison to previous reporting periods; and

(b)               the likelihood of achieving the set target for determining planning applications within the government guidelines.

(6)               The Head of Customer Services should update the Commission on:

(a)               whether the target for the percentage of calls answered within 30 seconds was still likely to be achieved; and

(b)               the methodology in use for determining the rating of the Contact Centre.

(7)               The Performance, Research and Consultation Manager should verify the figures reported at Q1 and Q2 for the level of early intervention services in the Children and Young People directorate and advise the Commission of his findings.

(8)               The Chief Executive should take steps to ensure that Heads of Service provided sufficient detail in their exception reports to allow the Commission and others to fully assess the impact where there was a risk of targets not being achieved.

(9)               The Chairman and Vice-Chairman to identify, prior to the receipt of future performance monitoring reports, those officers to be invited to attend Commission meetings at which they were considered, in order that they could provide greater detail.