Agenda item

(To receive a report which provides the Committee with insight on the assurances across all of the Council's critical services, key risk, partnerships and projects. The Corporate Management Team will be in attendance to update on their combined assurance reports for each directorate)

Consideration was given to a report which provided the Committee with an insight on the assurances across all the Council's critical services, key risks and projects.

 

The Head of Paid Service and the Executive Directors were in attendance to present their Combined Assurance report and answer any questions from members of the Committee.  Prior to the meeting, the Committee had requested that the senior officers provide information on the three key risks that concerned them the most.

 

Head of Paid Service

 

The Head of Paid Service advised the Committee that the following risks were of most concern:

 

(1)  Future Funding – it was advised that although the County Council was in a good position in the short-term, future funding in the medium to long-term remained uncertain.  However, it was highly likely that savings would be required in future.  It was confirmed that all changes to the County Council's Budget would be taken through the Council's decision making processes.

(2)  Information, Management and Technology – although significant improvements had been made in recent months with a refresh of individual IT being rolled out, there were improvements to be made to Business World On and on-going updates to cyber security.   It was advised that an IMT Board was in the process of being established, which would oversee all IMT projects, and would include both councillors and officers.

(3)  Integration with Health – it was highlighted that further integration with the NHS was a priority for the County Council, particularly for services supporting older people which would bring significant benefits.

 

Members were provided with an opportunity to ask questions, where the following points were noted: -

 

·         It was acknowledged that the future funding of the authority was out of the control of the County Council; the integration with health was reliant on suitable partnership arrangements; however the required improvements with regard to IMT were within Council's control;

·         There was a need to achieve a confident and steady state with core IMT so that IT outages would be a minimum.  The rolling out of Windows 365 and new IT equipment would make significant improvements to the IT provision in the Council.  Once the IT rollout had been completed, work would be undertaken with departments to ascertain whether there were ways of utilising the digital platform to achieve optimisation of services;

·         Improvements in IT would be continuously reviewed, as there were always IT developments which might improve services;

·         It was confirmed that cyber security was on the Council's Risk Register and would remain there at this present time.  There was a need to improve IT resilience and staff awareness of the risks associated with IT. In addition to the already mentioned improvements to IT, the Council would move to a cloud based system and that greater awareness and training would be rolled out to all employees for completion.  There was a clear need to ensure that any cloud based system would store the Council's data safely and securely.  It would remain the responsibility of the County Council that its data remained safe and secure and that relevant contingencies were in place.  Assurances would be sought during the commercial process to ensure that third party processes were secure;

·         It was confirmed that representatives of the Council liaised and visited other local authorities to see what improvements they were making to their IT provision.  However there was a need to focus on the perspective of future IT provision, and not the past.  It was advised that an assessment had been carried out by a consultant and their findings could be shared with the Committee.

 

Executive Director of Adult Care and Community Wellbeing

 

The Executive Director of Adult Care and Community Wellbeing advised of the following three risks:

 

(1)  Homecare – The majority of adult care users who were supported received their care at home, which suited with the aspirations of the service user.  This amounted to 7,000-8,000 people, receiving 64,000 visits per week which were delivered by twelve prime service providers.  Meeting the needs of the service user remained the priority.  It was highlighted that travel costs attributed up to 1/3 of the unit price, owing to the rurality of the County.  Approximately 45% of all people using home care were self-funders.

 

It was highlighted that in Lincolnshire, the County Council had developed strong relationships with social care providers and had a relatively stable market, compared to other areas of the country.

 

(2)  Inability to thrive (Information, Management and Technology) – there was a need to work collectively with the NHS to meet the needs of people.  It was highlighted that the Green Paper: Future Funding of Adult Social Care had been delayed, which would outline how adult social care services would be funded going forward and any directives for collaborative working.  The NHS Long-Term Plan had recently been published but the needs of adult social care services were essential for the NHS to function effectively.

 

A digital road map had been produced, which looked at the needs of the service. There was a clear need for a system that could be accessed by a range of partner agencies including the fire brigade, the NHS and adult social care services to ensure effective collaborative working.  It was highlighted that Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust also used Mosaic to record data, which was a good example of collaborative working. 

 

(3)  Future Funding – the future of the Better Care Fund remained unknown, which was scheduled to cease from the financial year 2020/21.  Without the Better Care Fund, the funding of adult social care services across the country would significantly suffer and most local authorities would be unable to cover the gap in funding.  It was hoped that the Green Paper, once published, would address some of these concerns.

 

It was reiterated that within Lincolnshire there was a good basis on where integrated services could be developed, which would better meet the needs of individuals and better help manage risks, for example with future funding.

 

Members were provided with an opportunity to ask questions, where the following points were noted:

 

·         It was advised that medical advances had meant that people were living longer.  It was also important that quality of life was ensured, whilst achieving relative independence.  Evidence had shown that preventative services worked well with older people.  It was highlighted that the County Council currently served approximately the same number of older people as it did 3-4 years ago; and that there was an increase in the number of family carers compared to previous years;

·         To ensure quality of service the directorate had an internal quality assurance service, which undertook case file audits; reviewed care packages; and that there was a commercial unit that reviewed the quality of the care visits undertaken by care service providers.  The Lincolnshire Care Association, which represented the care home providers, was a strategic partner to the County Council and  the Council liaised with the Association in developing training packages for care workers;

·         The retention of care workers remained an issue within Lincolnshire, as this role was significantly less well paid compared to health workers.  It was an aspiration to merge the two roles to assist with building better career structures and pay spines, which would in-turn help address the issues of retention.  However, there was a need for national changes to be introduced for this aspiration to be realised.

 

Executive Director of Finance and Public Protection

 

The Executive Director of Finance and Public Protection highlighted the following key issues within his area of responsibility:

 

·         Funding – There were a number of national decisions to be made regarding the future funding of local authorities.  Although a timetable had not yet been issued, a Spending Review, to be effective from 2020 onwards, would be carried out in 2019 by Government.  The Green Paper: Future Funding of Adult Social Care had been delayed until at least March 2019 and it was anticipated that the green paper would address concerns around funding adult social care services in the absence of the Better Care Fund.  It was also highlighted that by autumn of 2019, the outcomes of the Fair Funding and Business Rate Reviews would be known and it was hoped that this would be positive for the County Council. 

 

The Council was currently in a good budgetary position, which was because of the previously emphasised importance of maintaining volatility reserves.  However, as mentioned above, there would be a funding gap to fill from 2020 onwards and therefore the Council would be required to make savings via a fundamental budget review.  Protocols would be put in place to ensure that the Council would not enter into any 2-3 year contracts that it might not wish to maintain once the outcome of the spending review was known.

 

Improvements made to the Council's Agresso system had ensured an improvement in the Council's financial management. 

 

There was a need to undertake improvements to the control of the capital programme, in particular post-implementation reviews to ensure that was set out to be achieved, had been achieved and if not what were the lessons that had been learnt.  

 

·         An Inspection of Fire and Rescue Services had recently been carried out and had resulted in a good report.  Three key lines of inquiry formed part of the review on Effectiveness, Efficiency and People.  The Service had received a Good rating for Effectiveness and Efficiency, with People receiving Requires Improvement.   The report had been considered by the Public Protection and Communities Scrutiny Committee.

·         Key partnerships continued to work well.

·         Brexit had been red flagged but this was owing to the number of unknowns.  The Lincolnshire Resilience Forum had been requested to undertake a Brexit analysis for Lincolnshire and it had been deemed a relatively low risk.

 

It was highlighted that staff recruitment and retention across health and social care remained a key risk so work was being undertaken with European Union employees, who wished to remain within the UK, to receive settled status as soon as possible. 

 

The Committee was provided with an opportunity to ask questions, where the following points were noted:

 

·         It was queried why there was a significant percentage of amber relating to substance misuse services on page 51 of the agenda pack.  In response, it was highlighted that a contract had recently been retendered for substance misuse services and although the contractor was performing well, it would remain amber until the new contract had settled.  It was also highlighted that most of the Public Health contracts had been recently retendered so the same principle applied to those contracts;

·         It was hoped that a single programme of work would be developed.  It was highlighted that new contracts were taken through an informal commissioning board, which consisted of a mix of officers and executive councillors.  It was suggested that if a single programme of work was developed that this should be shared with scrutiny committees to inform work programmes.

 

Interim Executive Director of Place

 

The Interim Executive Director of Place highlighted the following three key issues:

 

(1)  State and condition of the Council's highway – the quality and the approach the maintenance of the highway was influenced by the level of funding that was received.

(2)  Management of individual contracts - For example with the Lincoln Eastern Bypass and the Council's ability to respond to the collapse of a contractor, which had seen a positive response and had not resulted in a delay in the delivery of the project. 

 

It was also highlighted that there were currently issues with the IT provision in libraries, however there were plans in place to address this issue.

 

It was noted that work was being undertaken with the Council's Property Team in developing options for the Archives project.

 

(3)  Other big issues: Climate Change Agenda; Waste it was anticipated that there would be changes in the way waste was dealt with and therefore it was important to maintain collective working arrangements with partners; Flooding – it was essential that the Council continued to maintain working relationships with partner organisations; Brexit - there would be a short to medium impact on economies until uncertainty was addressed.

 

Members were provided with an opportunity to ask questions, where the following points were noted:

 

·         The directorate was future proofing policies and contracts;

·         In response to a question relating to the delay in undertaking the review of scrutiny, it was suggested that the Head of Democratic Services and Statutory Scrutiny Officer be requested to bring forward the review, despite the Statutory Guidance from the Secretary of State on Overview and Scrutiny, not yet being available.

·         It was confirmed that cash flow was examined as part of any due diligence.

 

Interim Director of Children's Services

 

The Interim Director of Children's Services highlighted the following three key issues:

 

(1)  Narrowing the Gap – It was highlighted that this was a complicated area, as only three of the 55 secondary schools were 'maintained' and the remaining 52 secondary schools were the responsibility of the Secretary of State, as academies.  Therefore the County Council's influence over the academies was not as significant as the influence over the three maintained schools.  However, it was highlighted that they were Lincolnshire children attending schools in Lincolnshire and it was therefore the responsibility of the County Council to ensure the best outcome for those children.  The Council was aware of the data and what the challenges were and at present, the gap had not yet narrowed so it was important to find alternative solutions to address this issue.

 

It was highlighted that the Interim Director for Education regularly met with schools to discuss ways in which the gap could be narrowed.  It was important that collaborative working was further improved to assist in narrowing the gap.

 

(2)  Integrating health visitors and nurses into the local authority – although initially there were challenges with this integration, it was now beginning to show how effective it had been.  However, there were improvements required to the 2.5 years mandated checks. 

 

A recent Inspection of SEND Services had found that the County Council was good at identifying vulnerable children and young people. 

 

The Council had recognised the need for a mixed skills base to deliver assessments and therefore family health practitioners were now assisting with the completion of these assessments.

 

Health workers were now able to utilise Children Centres in undertaking assessments and reviews.  The performance of assessments was now improving.

 

(3)  Fostering Service – The County Council had a very strong in-house fostering service with 476 children looked after by foster carers.  However, the Council had an aging and retiring care service.  There was a challenge for the Council in ensuring that people chose to foster for the County Council, rather than fostering for private foster care services which typically paid more to the foster carers.  One of the options available to the County Council was to offer a retention payment for long serving foster carers.

 

The Committee was provided with an opportunity to ask questions, where the following points were noted:

 

·         In response to a question relating to closing the attainment gap, the Committee was advised that the gap was considerable in Lincolnshire at every stage and Lincolnshire was worse than the national average by approximately 2%.  It was difficult for the County Council to ascertain why this was the case as there appeared to be different patterns for different year groups so there was not a clear or consistent reason for the gap.  The Committee was assured that this was not as a result of academisation, as the gap was of a similar size prior to the introduction of academies.  The Committee was also assured that schools were working collaboratively with the County Council with an aim of reducing the gap.

 

RESOLVED

 

That the updates given and points raised be noted.