Agenda item

(Item 5 – report of Mr Paul Carter, Leader and Cabinet Member for Business Strategy, Audit & Transformation and David Cockburn, Corporate Director Business Strategy and Support)

Cabinet received a report which detailed the performance of the Council against key targets in the fourth quarter of the financial year and highlighted any areas of significant change or concern.

The Leader of the County Council, Mr Carter introduced the item as performance management now lay within the responsibilities of his portfolio.  He was pleased that the report was largely positive, and reminded colleagues of the importance of robust quality assurance statistics, particularly in relation to Looked after and vulnerable children in Kent.  He requested that the Quarter one paper for 2013-14 include how those services would be quality assured.

He also referred to the Health and Wellbeing Board and the debate which had occurred.  It had been identified that in this area appropriate performance criteria would also be needed, once developed there some of that data would be shared within the regular performance report.

Richard Fitzgerald, Performance Manager, spoke to the item.  In particular he referred to the following:

·                That detailed dashboard reports were currently being received at meetings of the relevant Cabinet Committees.

The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, Mr Gibbens reported from the perspective of his portfolio, he made the following comments:

·                That he agreed with the need for public health performance to be reported.

·                Enablement would be a key part of the transformation process and although currently at amber improvements were being sought as the target affected the most vulnerable residents in Kent

The Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform, Mr Gough, spoke to the item.  He reported that:

·                Standards and improvement indicators had showed improvement and that the direction of travel was good, However schools in category was proving intractable and work would be undertaken to improve this indicator.

·                That the overall account was positive and the work towards school improvement would continue

·                That the Health and Wellbeing Board was working with CCG’s currently to determine the indicators that would be used to measure performance in that area.

The Cabinet member for Communities, Mr Hill, reported that the Communities directorate was pleased with the improvements shown in particular in relation to the increased number of website visits.

The Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Mr Dance, spoke to the item.  He reported that where his directorate had shown amber returns direction of travel was positive and referred to funding secured to entice companies to expand within Kent.

The Cabinet Member for Commercial and Traded Services, Mr Sweetland, asked cabinet to consider a further stretch target be introduced when a target reached green in order to encourage continuous improvement.  The Leader asked that Richard Fitzgerald to consider and pursue this suggestion.

The Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment, Mr Brazier, reported that the results for his portfolio were satisfactory in most cases and above target in others.  He expressed concern that customer satisfaction remained at amber and would hope to improve on this target.

In addition he commented on the increase of material being sent to landfill but assured members that this was a temporary occurrence related to changes in recycling centre services and closures for maintenance.

The Cabinet Member for Specialist Children’s Services, Mrs Whittle, referred to the following information pertaining to her directorate.

·                That a number of indicators remained red

·                That a recent think tank report had inaccurately claimed that front line

Social Worker posts occupied by temporary staff at Kent were five times higher than is accurate.  Action had been taken to address the inaccuracy.

·                That the social worker recruitment website had been relaunched and it was hoped that the information on it, regarding life in Kent and working for Kent County Council, would help to encourage more social workers to apply.

·                Despite there being some posts filled by temporary workers, caseloads for Social Workers in Kent were lower than in many areas of the country.  However the council continued to strive to improve the increase the number of permanent social workers.

·                That the percentage of children being adopted in the last year had increased.

The Leader commented on the issue raised by Mr Sweetland regarding stretch targets and added to that a request that longer term targets be added to the report where appropriate.