Agenda item

To consider the Raising Aspirations Theme Report for priorities 1, 2 and 9.

Mrs R. Henshaw, Engagement and Intelligence Officer, presented the Raising Aspirations Theme report, which summarised performance against the following Council priorities:

·        Priority One – Tackle child poverty, raise aspirations and improve educational achievement.

·        Priority Two – Safeguard and protect the most vulnerable

·        Priority Nine – Deliver quality services through a professional, well-rewarded and motivated workforce.

The Committee was advised that performance against each priority would be presented by Council Plan theme throughout 2014/2015.

Mrs D Curtis, Director of Children’s Services, provided the Committee with reports on Priority One. She advised the Committee of the key challenges for 2014/2015, which included keeping children safe in Blackpool, ensuring children were ready for school, ensuring more good and outstanding schools in Blackpool and securing apprenticeships and developing pathways into work. Mrs Curtis informed the Committee of the various ways in which Children’s Services intended to tackle those challenges and explained that the recently secured Better Start funding would be important for use in many of the schemes to tackle the challenges of this priority.

Mrs Curtis also provided the Committee with a summary of the recently published Ofsted report following its inspection of Children’s Services. Members were advised that Ofsted had recognised the progress that had been made since its previous inspection and the report highlighted a number of strengths, such as there being appropriate measures in place to prevent child sexual exploitation and there being a strong commitment from Members and Senior Leadership to drive improvement in services. However, Mrs Curtis explained to Members that the report also highlighted a number of areas that required improvement and she summarised what the next steps would be in order for the Council to make those improvements.

Councillor Ivan Taylor responded to a question from the Committee regarding plans to improve all secondary schools in Blackpool. It was noted that all but one secondary school was now an academy and therefore the local authority no longer had the same level of control in order to drive improvements as it had done in the past. Councillor Taylor explained that, although the issue was particularly challenging, the local authority needed to monitor and challenge all schools’ plans and that Children’s Services worked hard to maintain relationships with all schools and sponsors.

Ms K Smith, Director of Adult Services, provided an update to the Committee on Priority Two. She advised that the key challenges for the priority for 2014/2015 were to:

·   promote independence and person-centred care;

·   instigate service redesign and modernisation in light of the Care Act 2014 and the Better Care Fund;

·   further improve safeguarding;

·  raise quality standards across the service offer in partnership with stakeholders; and

·   maximise the use of resources.

Ms Smith reported the current areas of activity being undertaken to meet those challenges, which included promoting independence and person-centred care, instigating service redesign and modernisation in the light of the Care Act 2014, making further safeguarding improvements and raising quality standards. Ms Smith also responded to questions from the Committee in relation to issues around the Priority.

Mrs C McKeogh, Deputy Chief Executive, provided the Committee with an update report on Priority Nine, highlighting the key issues for the last quarter. The Committee noted that the key challenges for 2014/2015 were to:

·  continue to manage budgets well and take action to ensure that future years budget pressures were addressed;

·  move all agreed staff to Bickerstaffe House within the agreed timescales and with minimal disruption;

·  ensure the ICT roll out plan for staff was executed effectively to help deliver efficiencies and meet the requirements of the Public Services Network;

·  support staff through continued budget pressure and build team and individual resilience; and

·  improve customer feedback mechanisms so that we continue to improve our understanding of the residents’ view of Council services.

It was noted that when the Priority Report was last presented to the Committee, Members had raised a number of questions with regards to customer service. Therefore, Ms McRoberts, Assistant Treasurer, presented the Committee with information regarding the performance of Customer First.

Ms McRoberts noted the services provided by Customer First, with a breakdown of which services were delivered one stop, which services were arranged by Customer First and which services for which requests were logged.

The Committee was advised of the current situation with regards to the 2014/2015 budget of the service and the calls and other forms of contact received, as compared to the position in 2012/2013. Members noted the increase in the number of complaints in relation to people not being able to get through to the service, the decrease in percentage of calls answered and the increase in the average wait time for calls. However, Ms McRoberts reported that this was inevitable as a result of the reduction in resources of the service, with there being 17 fewer members of staff and those staff that remained having additional unpaid leave. The potential impacts of this issue with regards to staff, customers and the Council were discussed.

There then followed a discussion on how the situation could be improved. Ms McRoberts reported on a number of ways in which improvements would be made. Those included:

• a review of staffing levels in Customer First;
• an improvement in digital access, which would include an improved telephony system;
• a greater emphasis on shared responsibility and ownership from other Council Services, Elected Members and residents ‘self-helping’; and
• help to access services online for those that are currently unable.

In response to questions raised by the Committee, Ms McRoberts reported that approximately 40 per cent of failure calls were regarding some aspect of waste, such as fly tipping, missed collections, or drains being blocked.

The Committee agreed to note the content of the report.

Background papers: None.