Agenda item

Context:

We received a report in order to present quarter 2 performance data for the Improvement Objective and Outcome Agreement objectives which were under the remit of Adults Select Committee:

·         Improvement Objective 2 “We will safeguard people, whether young or old, while reducing people’s dependence on social care”.

·         Outcome agreement theme “Ensuring people receive the help they need to live fulfilled lives”.

Key Issues:

The Outcome Agreement and the Improvement Objectives have a different focus:

·         Improvement Objectives were set annually by the council to deliver on priorities.  Despite objectives being focused on the long term the specific activities that support them were particularly focussed for the year ahead

·         The Outcome Agreement is an agreement with the Welsh Government for a three year period, where the council needs to deliver on performance activity and associated targets that contribute to the Programme for Government. The

current agreement covers the period from 2013 to 2016. The council has previously been awarded full payment each year.

In the summer of 2015 the Welsh Government announced the final year of funding for performance in 2015-16 would no longer be attached to performance in the

Outcome Agreement and would be rolled directly into the Revenue Support Grant for

2016-17.  This means that payment for performance against the targets in the agreement for 2015-16, being discussed by members today, is assured. However given the importance placed on the agreement as part of the council’s performance framework to contribute to delivering the outcomes set it is important to continue to monitor performance against the agreement for its final year.

Member Scrutiny:

A Member commented that Children’s Services were behind target, which could be attributed to staffing issues and an outcome of inspection reports.  It was questioned if officers expected this to improve.  We heard that last year had shown incredibly good performance in Children’s Services.  There had been a difficult start to this year with staffing issues and agencies workers causing added pressures.  Staff were now looking closely at the measures, with frequent discussions with the leadership team being fed through to the Directorate Management Team on a monthly basis. 

A report regarding Children’s Services Performance Indicators would be brought to Joint Select Committee which would try to address all the issues in one coherent plan.

Members raised a concern surrounding Community Coordination and the decision not to roll out across the whole county without pilot work.  On the face of it there was a different feel to the services and way of working in Abergavenny and Caldicot to Chepstow and Monmouth.  It was questioned if the evaluation proved that it was not as effective as expected what would be the course of action. 

The Chief Officer for Social Care and Health explained that in terms of taking forward local area community coordination in those two area, it would be evaluated against the original criteria and business case.  It was important to get the hard evidence of what this has told us.  In terms of the future direction of travel and the performance measures the plan b around giving more services to people would not be sustainable from a service or financial point of view.

Recommendations:

The report recommended that members scrutinise the performance achieved and impact made to assess progress and performance against the objectives, and that members identify and explore any areas of underperformance or concerns, and to seek assurance from those responsible for future activity where they conclude that performance needs to improve.