Agenda item

To submit a report by the Head of Corporate Transformation.

The report of the Head of Profession (Human Resources and Transformation) outlining the position of the Council against its operational objectives for the final quarter of the 2017/18 financial year was presented for the Executive’s consideration.

The Portfolio Member for Corporate Services reported that the end of year position provides no surprises with the majority of indicators performing well against their targets. There have been challenges in the Learning Service; the Children and Families’ Services and in Adult Services where there are areas of underperformance as documented in the report. These are the subject of mitigating actions which are also outlined. On the other hand there are also exciting new developments in Adults’ Services which are expected to yield improvements; these are in relation to the award of the a new and revised Home Care Contract; increasing capacity at Garreglwyd to take in individuals with dementia problems, and the development of the Hafan Cefni Extra Care provision.

The Portfolio Member said with regard to People Management that although the end of year outcome with regard to sickness absence levels narrowly missed the corporate target due to a spike in sickness absences in Quarter 4 which was replicated nationally, the performance is still ragged as Yellow on the Scorecard with Quarters 1, 2 and 3 of 2017/18 having been ahead of target and the best in three years. The decline in the number of Return to Work interviews held within timescale (73% compared to 78% for 2016/17) is disappointing and is attributable to the poor performance in Quarter 1 which has had an impact on the cumulative annual performance. The total number of RTWs held (within and out of timescale) at 85% is well below the 95% target.

The performance against the PIs in Customer Service has improved with a notable increase in the use of social media to engage with the Council. The performance in responding to Freedom of Information Requests within timescale at 78% is an improvement on the 77% in 2016/17 particularly when the increased volume of requests is taken into account – 7,527 in 2017/18 compared to 5,700 in 2016/17.

The Portfolio Member said that the momentum of continuous improvement has to be sustained across the Council and that this can be done by all services working collectively to address underperforming areas.

The Executive noted the information presented and made the following points –

•  The Executive noted the decline in performance with regard to conducting Return to Work interviews. The Executive further noted that as an important management tool in managing sickness absence, there must be renewed effort to improve the number of RTWs held to lift performance closer to the target level.

The Head of Profession (HR and Transformation) said that the latest figures for the first month of 2018/19 show performance in conducting RTWs to be at 87% which is a significant improvement and which confirms what she had reported to the Corporate Scrutiny Committee earlier in the month about Heads of Service being focused on monitoring RTWs and improving and maintaining the performance in terms of increasing the number of interviews held.

•  The Executive noted that the performance against PI WMT/009b (the % of waste collected by Local Authorities and prepared for reuse and/or recycled) has improved again this year to 72.2% thereby elevating the Authority to first in Wales for this performance measure. The Executive noted that there is also scope for the Authority to build on its commitment to reducing plastic waste by taking a lead on, and setting an example in working to eliminate single use plastics.

•  The Executive noted that underperformance against some of the Learning Service’s PIs are being addressed through the specific remedial measures outlined  in the report; monitoring and  improvement work is also ongoing via the Education Transformation and Education Standards Boards as well as the Schools’ Performance Review Panel.

•  The Executive noted that by the end of the year, 71 complaints were received and 9 Stage 2 complaints in Social Services and that all of the complaints received a response with 18 upheld in full, 5 partially upheld and the remaining 48 not upheld. The Executive sought clarification of whether services analyse the substance of complaints in order to learn from them and to identify potential improvements.

The Assistant Chief Executive (Partnerships, Communities and Service Improvement) confirmed that work is being done on looking at complaints as a source of information about services that can lead to improvements; the Customer Care Improvement Panel is also working on ensuring consistency across services in respect of both compliments and complaints.

It was resolved –

•  To accept the Scorecard Monitoring report for Quarter 4 2017/18 and to note its contents.

•  To note the areas where the Senior Leadership Team is managing to secure improvements into the future as set out in section 1.4 of the report.

•  To accept the mitigation measures as outlined in the report.