Agenda item

The item was introduced by Steve Smith (Assistant Director, Commissioning Support Unit), who stated the report had been compiled by the Business Intelligence Team. He said there continued to be a consistent strong performance in areas of relevance to the Committee, which was particularly encouraging in light of the current volatile economic climate and challenges relating to staff capacity and workforce retention. Steve Smith said around three quarters of the performance measures under the Committee’s remit were either on track or had already been met. He said there were significant challenges caused by an increased demand and funding levels for Special Educational Needs provision, which then had an impact on the High Needs Block on the Dedicated Schools Grant. The Fire and Rescue Service had challenges relating to incident response times, which had led to a re-evaluation of risk and resource management across the county. Significant risks included slowing in economic growth, high interest rates and high rates of inflation. Steve Smith said the emerging Government policy regarding adult social care reforms would also continue to be monitored.

Members’ attention was drawn to the appendices of the main report, which outlined the key business measures and how Warwickshire County Council’s performance compared against other local authorities. Performance against the Integrated Delivery Plan, management of the financial risk associated with the Fire and Rescue Service, and the key services’ risks summary were all also included in the appendices. Members were reminded they had access to this data through Power BI.

The Chair said members should thank officers for the work they were doing in light of challenging global circumstances.

Responding to a question from Councillor Sarah Boad, Steve Smith said 74 per cent of the items on the Integrated Delivery Plan were either on track or completed. This figure was 54 per cent for the key business measures. Steve Smith reminded members that the Integrated Delivery Plan covered a two-year cycle. It had incorporated Levelling Up and Community Powered Warwickshire, and had been formally adopted by Cabinet at its May meeting.

Councillor Sarah Feeney noted the Fire and Rescue Service’s target relating to road traffic collisions, and asked if this could be met, was an area of concern, or an arbitrary figure. Ben Brook (Chief Fire Officer) said that the police would attend incidents that the Fire and Rescue Service were unable to get to. He said the figure had been produced as an average of the figures over the past three years; however, incidents were now rising and their severity was also increasing.

Councillor Tim Sinclair noted the percentage of respondents to the Your Say survey who had said they felt safe to be their authentic self, and said he felt this ought to be higher. He also noted high sickness absence rates in some service areas. On the first point Rob Powell said this had been an area of particular focus by the EDI team and stated his belief the figure of 79 per cent was in line with sector benchmarks, but should be seen alongside a number of other measures of the Council’s inclusive culture. Several staff network groups had been involved as part of this, which looked at broader issues and the importance of creating the right culture to enable all colleagues to share their experiences and characteristics. Following a recent campaign there had been a significant increase in rates of staff disclosure of their protected characteristics. Regarding absence rates, Rob Powell said there was significant variation between services, with most services having lower sickness rates. Sickness levels in social care and business support were higher, which may reflect specific aspects of the work in these areas, particularly emotional or mental health-related reasons.

Responding to a question from Councillor Sarah Feeney regarding adverse Ombudsman determinations and why it was reported under the data and digital solutions section, Sarah Duxbury (Assistant Director, Governance and Policy) said there was a link between digitisation of the customer journey work, improvements being sought, and complaints – some of which ended up being investigated by the Ombudsman. Regarding performance, the cases were quite fact specific and any learning points that could be shared more generally across service areas would be considered in respect of adverse findings. In addition to these, learning points identified from Ombudsman reports relating to other local authorities were also circulated. This process sat with Legal Services, who maintain an overview of the Council’s performance and would follow up with specific service areas as necessary.

In response to a query from Councillor Tim Sinclair about value for money green ratings, Rob Powell said external auditors had given green ratings to two of the three criteria used. These related to financial sustainability and governance. The third criterion, value for money, was amber as a result of the outcomes of the Ofsted local area inspection of SEND provision and the HMICFRS inspection of the Fire and Rescue Service.

Responding to a question from Councillor Ian Shenton about fire response times, Ben Brook said the current situation was crews were expected to attend an incident within ten minutes 75 per cent of the time. However there were parts of the county that had a higher risk of an incident occurring. A review was taking place to reconfigure the service, and consider how resources could be assigned to places that had a higher associated level of risk. This could help to reduce emergency response times by up to 30 seconds, which Ben Brook said could be crucial in a life or death situation. Councillor Andy Crump said a vast amount of evidence had been analysed and considered by members of the Community Risk Management Plan Assurance Panel. A consultation on reconfiguration of resources would follow with members. Councillor Crump said this formed an important part of the prevention and protection strategy. He said response times did not always lead to a positive outcome, recalling an incident where crews were able to attend within less than five minutes but by then it was already too late.

Councillor Ian Shenton asked about the performance at outturn against the budgets for Governance and Policy. Sarah Duxbury said the revenue position was mainly as a result of higher than budgeted external legal trading income, with services being provided to the Council but also to other public sector bodies. This was a positive outcome. This included other local authorities asking for help with legal services in areas such as child protection where there was a shortfall in available provision.

Responding to a question from Councillor Tim Sinclair about the information from the Warwickshire Outcome Measures, Steve Smith said this was used to identify priority areas, particularly in relation to Levelling Up and Community Powered Warwickshire, and inform the future work programme. It had the additional benefit of allowing officers to compare performance against other parts of the country. Rob Powell said the information had helped officers to create an evidence base that helped to support partnership working. He gave the example of the ongoing work with district and borough councils, and other public sector partners, to develop local levelling up plans, as these had been drawn extensively from the shared evidence base.

Regarding tackling climate change, Councillor Heather Timms said the goals were ambitious but the Council needed to be pragmatic in its approach to trying to meet them. Responding to a question from Councillor Ian Shenton, Sarah Duxbury said an element of the Sustainable Futures Strategy was aimed at shifting residents’ behaviours and that consideration would be given to that and how the Council, residents and businesses, could be enabled to make more sustainable decisions around energy consumption. Steve Smith said an update report on the 2030 net zero plan and the Sustainable Futures Strategy would be going to Cabinet later in the month.

Members noted the contents of the report.