Agenda item

To present performance against the Council Plan 2015-2020 for the period 1 April 2016 – 31 March 2017.

The Committee considered a report which detailed performance against the Council Plan 2015-2020 for the period 1 April 2016 – 31 March 2017.

The report was presented by Ms Watson, Delivery Development Officer, who explained that there were 13 indicators within the performance basket for Resilient Communities and 8 indicators within the performance basket for Children’s Scrutiny. She pointed out that information on the indicators where performance was below target or where performance had deteriorated compared with 2015/2016, could be found in Appendix 6(b) of the report.

Ms Watson went on to explain that the Corporate Delivery Unit was working on a revised set of indicators that would better reflect the Council’s priorities. It was proposed that the new basket of indicators be reported to the Committee for the 2017/2018 reporting year.

It was further explained that to allow Members to receive more timely and appropriate performance information, it was proposed that performance reports in 2017/2018 be aligned to the future workplan for the Committee, with a full break down of indicator performance reported as an overview report at year end. It was hoped that this would equip Members with more relevant performance information reported at the same time and topic as future scrutiny reports. The reports would be focussed and more in-depth than the current reporting arrangements and would give Members more insight and narrative to current performance issues. Furthermore, the Corporate Delivery Unit would work closely with the Democratic Governance Team and relevant departments to ensure that the reports be as insightful as possible.

Ms Watson, Ms Booth and Councillor Cain then responded to a number of questions from the Committee on the content of the report.

The Committee asked about the below target figures for the death to service time for cremations and whether family preferences were taken into account. Councillor Cain explained that family requests and funeral directors’ requests were taken into account. Also, the times offered for services might not always be convenient. It was pointed out that the factors could skew the figures. Councillor Cain stressed that the service was trying to be as flexible as possible to accommodate family needs and preferences.

Regarding the performance indicators that were included in the report, in response to questions from the Committee, Ms Watson explained that some of the indicators were as a result of statutory requirements and some were not.

Members asked that in future, if it would be possible to include an indicator that related to children discharged from care, who were subsequently re-admitted after a certain period of time. Ms Booth explained that a major part of the current improvement plan was to develop a performance plan that was fit for purpose. Some measures would be included as a result of statutory requirements and some for comparison purposes with other local authorities. It was envisaged that the performance plan would include, in relation to children:

1)                  How many came into care

2)                  How many are discharged from care

3)                  How long they remained out of care.

Ms Booth also pointed out that the information collated for the performance plan would be the kind of data that was important for first line managers in their day to day work.

The Committee pointed out that in the past, there had been a plethora of key performance indicators and quoted the ‘purple book’ and other sources as examples. Asked if it was possible to better collate the data, Ms Booth explained that it was intended to adopt a monthly scorecard approach, showing changes within the service. The scorecard would concentrate on exception reporting, so it could readily be seen where key changes had occurred.

In response to questions from Members, Ms Booth confirmed that in relation to children who were subject to home education facilities, they were included in all of the reported statistics.

The Committee discussed the issue relating to mandatory requirements for schools to take on challenging pupils and questioned how that correlated with the push to raise school standards. Ms Booth acknowledged that the two factors created a conflict. She pointed out that the quality of teaching was a key issue and that three school improvement bids were currently in place. There would be more support provided and the aim was for each school to have a plan that would detail improvements around behaviour, attainment and attendance. The Committee went on to discuss the challenges around recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and asked what was being done to achieve this. Ms Booth explained that a Communications Strategy was being developed as part of the overall Improvement Plan. Part of this would be to hold events that would celebrate the work of the good schools and help to attract good quality staff. She explained that a great deal of work was already taking place to attract good quality teaching staff. Encouraging self belief formed a big part of this and the celebratory events would add to the initiatives underway. Ms Booth also pointed out that Blackpool was linked with Blackburn with Darwen, Lancashire and Cumbria within a regional school improvement approach.

Regarding a section of the report which indicated that Blackpool Children’s Safeguarding Board had invested in rolling out training on the Graded Profile of Neglect Tool across all agencies, the Committee requested further details. Ms Booth explained that it would support partner agencies with identifying areas that families need support with and enable them to target support where it was required. She added that a risk sensible model would be rolled out and would be one of the tools available within that package.

The Committee asked about the Headstart scheme and when outcomes from this would be able to be measured. Ms Booth explained that an outcomes framework was being sought from Headstart, but seeing as it was a longer term model, it was not possible to suggest a date for this as yet. As to its longer term viability, Ms Booth suggested that in the fullness of time, it would be right to question whether the model was actually providing the required results and question if it was actually working.

The Committee agreed to note the report.

Background papers: None.