Agenda item

Purpose: To provide the Select Committee with the opportunity to scrutinise the draft Public Service Board Annual Report which describes progress made towards delivering the board’s well-being objectives during 2020-21.

Authors: Richard Jones, Sharran Lloyd

Richard Jones and Sharran Lloyd presented the report and answered the members’ questions.

Challenge:

Regarding statistics, there is a comparison from p37 onwards with other authorities and national indicators – why do they change throughout the document?

We thought it was useful not to just compare Monmouthshire’s performance with Wales, but also with comparable authorities. Those are chosen by looking at the particular indicator – which aspect of wellbeing – then using a statistical tool based on different variables (e.g., socio-economic, demographic, geography, etc.) to look at similar authorities. Depending on which indicator it is, we choose which area is most similar to Monmouthshire, statistically. So, the comparison authority will vary between indicators because we use slightly different variables, depending on the indicator. These are national indicators looking at how each area is progressing towards the national wellbeing goals – they are not necessarily, in themselves, a performance indicator of any one individual public body or public service board. Nonetheless, the public service board uses them to look at how they are progressing against those broader wellbeing goals.

What has the effect been of Covid on Monmouthshire’s performance?

Due to a delay in reporting, several indicators will cover periods prior to the pandemic. As more information becomes available, and now there is a lot of data coming through about how the pandemic has affected wellbeing, we will give those areas further consideration. The process discussed in the previous item concerning the wellbeing assessment will be key to that: we will gather data about and views from Monmouthshire residents about how the pandemic has affected their wellbeing, and what might affect it in the future. PSB partner organisations will provide a vital range of evidence to inform the process.

Would it ever be possible to have a synthetic county, in data terms, to compare more accurately with the other counties by extracting the same data from them?

We can try to utilise data in the most effective way possible to help us to understand wellbeing, using the range of data at as low a geography as possible to do that. Through the Wellbeing assessment process and the Public Service Board working both regionally and locally, we will be able to build up our knowledge based on the statistical assessment and qualitative data. We can continue to make progress through the various mechanisms.

What is the Iceberg model referred to on p10?

It is linked to the CAMHS transformation model under the RPB, looking at how we address the mental health and wellbeing and emotional resilience of children and young people. There are several strands of work under that model. Some of that concerns how we push community psychology into the community to understand the behaviour of children and young people, linking very strongly with adverse childhood experiences, keeping children and families well in a community, and that we have intervention at different stages of the inverse pyramid – pushing more resources out of specialist treatment and into the broader community.

How long does it take to write a report like this, and when do you start gathering the information?

It’s a collaborative effort: each of the steps set out under the Public Service Board objectives has a Step Lead in place who is responsible for coordinating the delivery of that step but also in working with other partners. We report the progress and performance of that step during the year. The Community & Partnership team then supports those step leads throughout the year in delivery and coordinating updates in a consistent format to populate the annual report, as well as strengthen it where we can see alignment with work that is happening across the county. We also look at the broader parts e.g. national indicators. We also have team members responsible for particular facets working across the county, and members who work directly with town and community councils in this area, assisting them and providing support, and identifying what they would like to see represented in the annual report. Activity is throughout the year but ramps up once we get past the end of the financial year to bring the elements of the report together.

Chair’s summary:

The committee has received the PSB's annual report and are quite impressed with the report. We understand that comparisons are drawn with statistically similar authorities, and we think that is helpful in terms of enabling us to see how we are progressing against the broader well-being goals at a national level. We recognise that having a wider evidence base will help with the development of the new well-being assessment and we also recognise that there has been so much change over the past 18 months, that the Covid pandemic will have a significant impact on well-being that will also need to be captured within the assessment. As a scrutiny committee, we will want to scrutinise this going forward. We would like to thank you for all your work in drawing the work of the PSB together into such a well written report and congratulate you on your hard work. The committee asks that you feed back our conclusions on the scrutiny of the annual report to the PSB.

In future, it would be very helpful if a glossary for acronyms were to be included in the report.