Agenda item

(Item 11 – report by Mr R Gough, Cabinet Member for Business Strategy, Performance and Health Reform and Mr D Cockburn, Corporate Director of Business Strategy and Support)

Cabinet received a report of the member and officer named above, the purpose of which was to provide updated information on key areas of the Council’s performance for consideration and comment.

The Cabinet Member for Business Strategy, Performance and Health Reform, Mr Roger Gough, spoke to the report and in particular referred to the following:

• That further work continued to establish qualitative indicators within performance measuring and reporting.
• That where performance indicators were recorded as red, particularly where the direction of travel was not positive, a report would be considered by the Performance and Evaluation Board in order to explain the issues affecting performance and the actions being taken.
• That although the direction of travel for the year was positive, having shown improvement, considerable work would need to be undertaken in order to achieve similar performance results as last year.

The Leader of the County Council reiterated the importance of the rigour placed on the system of performance monitoring and management and reported that this was further engrained by a culture of peer comparison with other authorities.

Mr Richard Hallett, Head of Business Intelligence for the BSS Directorate was in attendance to speak to the item, he had nothing further to add to the comments which Mr Gough had made and no further questions were received.

Mr Hallet did draw Members attention to the recommendation seeking approval of a variation to a business plan target that was being sought.  This variation, he explained, was sought to reflect changes to the national target for personal budgets which had been reduced from 100% to 70%.

The Leader of the County Council confirmed with officers that each divisional section of the performance report would be taken to the relevant Cabinet Committee for consideration and comment and reminded officers that the comments, ideas and requests received should be incorporated wherever possible.

The Cabinet Member for Specialist Children’s Services, Mrs Jenny Whittle addressed Cabinet; she reported that although the adoption target was still reported as ‘red’ there had in fact been a substantial increase in numbers of children placed with families.  She illustrated this by comparing figures from 2011/12 when 67 children were placed with families and the first 7 months of 2012/13 where 80 children had already been placed with families.  There was a delay in the reporting of figures owing to the time lag between children being placed and adoption orders being granted and therefore she expected to see the improvement in performance occurring now registered in the figures for 2013/14.

The Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Economic Development, Mr Mark Dance spoke to the item.  He reported that the performance indicator which measured the ‘Number of gross jobs created in Kent and Medway through inward investment” was currently flagged as red but assured members that the work being carried out such as the Expansion East Kent, Regional Growth Fund, the forthcoming TIGER funding for North Kent and Thurrock and the Paramount development meant that the direction of travel was positive and the report would reflect those efforts in time.  The Leader of the County Council thanked Mr Dance for his comments and suggested that a report be taken to a future meeting of the Economic Development Cabinet Committee in order to ensure that the path towards growth and jobs continued.

It was RESOLVED: