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 Leadership Team will be in attendance to update on their combined assurance reports for each directorate)

The Chairman congratulated Debbie Barnes OBE on her recent appointment as Chief Executive of Lincolnshire County Council.

 

The report provided an insight on the assurances across all the Council's critical services, key risks, partnerships and projects.  The Corporate Leadership Team was in attendance to present their respective area.

 

Chief Executive Summary

 

The Chief Executive's summary was set out on page 22 of the agenda pack.  The Chief Executive highlighted the substantial assurance for the Council and stated that over the last twelve months there had been a change in leadership with the appointment of a new Chief Executive; and three new Executive Directors.  It was also highlighted that interviews were scheduled to appoint to the post of Executive Director of Children's Services.

 

Strategic Risks

 

The Strategic Risks were set out on pages 23 – 24 of the agenda pack.  The Chief Executive highlighted there were four critical areas of risk.  The first was the uncertainty over the long-term funding for local government, in particular for adult social care; and the increase in demand for special educational needs and disabilities services remained a risk.  The Council continued to lobby for fairer funding, which aimed to improving the distribution of funding and address some of the challenges of delivering services in a rural county. 

 

The second area of risk related to the priority for an integrated health and care system, which was being mitigated by the appointment of a seconded senior manager to lead on the neighbourhood team initiative.  In response to a question, it was advised that the pace of change in this area was slow, which was due in part to the NHS needing to seek approval of any proposed changes at a national level.

 

The third area of risk was IMT.  The roll out of windows 10 machines had led to greater staff satisfaction and the implementation of Office 365 would further improve user experience.  The Committee was assured that this was an improving area and employees were advising that systems had become more reliable.

 

The fourth area of risk was workforce, where there was a challenge to recruit in certain areas, such as social work; legal services; and engineers.

 

In response to a question, it was hoped that the Lincoln Medical School would assist with recruitment of medical staff across the County. Particular reference was made to the retention and recruitment of staff for NHS roles, particularly in a rural county.

 

NOTE: Andrew Middleton (Independent Added Member) wished it to be noted that he was the lay Vice-Chairman of South West Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group.

 

Adult Care and Community Wellbeing (AC&CW)

 

The key messages of the Executive Director of Adult Care and Community Wellbeing were set out of pages 25 – 26 of the agenda pack.

 

The Executive Director highlighted that the Wellbeing Service, which was delivered in partnership with district councils, was working well.  Approximately 8,000 people benefited from this service each year.

 

Work was being undertaken on Team Around the Adult which would involve multi-agency partnership working based around each individual.  It was anticipated that this could be rolled out in the summer of 2020.

 

The occupational therapy service had been reorganised to better align with district councils.  A sum of £6 million was spent each year on adaptions, with district councils working closely with the County Council on this.  It was noted that in line with national trends, it was working age people with high intensive support needs who generated the highest expenditure. 

 

In terms of workforce, AC&CW had adopted a policy of 'grow your own'  and, alongside the introduction of apprenticeships, were supporting up to twelve unqualified fieldworkers to become qualified as social workers or occupational therapists which would aim to replace staff, who were retiring and where such roles were hard to recruit. 

 

It was intended that neighbourhood teams would reduce pressures on GPs and hospitals.

 

In response to questions, the following points were noted:

 

• The backlog of financial assessments had been cleared, owing to a change in charging practices; the digitisation of systems; and a change in the focus of the main contractor.
• There was a relatively stable and well-resourced residential care sector in Lincolnshire.  For home care there was a turnover rate of around 30%, and there was a need for care workers to have recognition and status similar to that in the NHS.  Withdrawal from the European Union was considered a relatively low risk for the sector, compared to the 30% turnover rate, which represented a challenge in Lincolnshire as elsewhere. 
• A report on the Team Around the Adult initiative was requested for one year's time.  

 

Children's Services

 

The Directors' key messages were outlined on page 27 of the agenda pack.  The Chief Executive was pleased to report that this had been a successful year for Children's Services which had been judged Outstanding by Ofsted. 

 

It was also highlighted that inspections in Children's Public Health and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) had also secured enviable outcomes. 

 

In response to the Committee's questions on the key messages, the following points were noted:

 

• Reference was made to the national review being led by Tony McArdle, as the Chair of the SEND System Leadership Board, and the Council's expected outcomes of the review.  It was hoped that the review would identify the need for a ring-fenced budget for SEND school funding allocations, rather than a notional budget.
• There was a link between attainment and free school meals.  The Council was undertaking targeted work with schools aimed at reducing the attainment gap.
• The Council had introduced a SEND Strategy with an investment of £50?60 million of capital funding to increase capacity. The main aim of the strategy was to meet the needs of children with SEND closer to home and to reduce travel across the county. 

 

NOTE: Ian Haldenby (Independent Added Member) wished it to be noted that he had family members with special needs.

 

The Committee welcomed the SEND Strategy and the improvements it would introduce to the higher needs offer across Lincolnshire.

 

Resources

 

The Executive Director – Resources key messages were detailed on pages 28 – 29 of the agenda pack.

 

The Executive Director highlighted that corporate oversight of the capital programme would be implemented during 2020-21. 

 

The outcomes of a risk review in 2019 would see improvements in corporate oversight; reporting consistency; and measurable controls. 

 

There had been short term resourcing issues in internal audit.  Temporary staffing had provided short term assurance and the recruitment to permanent posts.

 

The overview and scrutiny function had been identified as a potential area of improvement by the LGA Corporate Peer Review.  The outcomes of a scrutiny review currently underway would seek to increase the effectiveness of this function.

 

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

 

• There was a national shortage of lawyers in the legal childcare area and short term measures had been introduced by the Council, including the use of private practice in maintain provision.  It was advised that a key factor was that local government pay structures could not compete with those of private practice, which had made it difficult to recruit to positions on a permanent basis. 
• Debtors – there had continued to be poor performance of the recovery of aged debt.  It was suggested that this could be an area for overview and scrutiny.
• The Information Assurance Annual Report would include detail on the records management project.
• Work was being undertaken with Internal Audit to improve the processes around starters and leavers of the council.
• It was acknowledged that the changes in risk status was as a result of work being undertaken by the new Executive Directors to review and assess areas of risk in their departments, which had resulted in some movement in risk ratings.

 

Commercial

 

The Executive Director – Commercial's key messages were set out on pages 30 – 31 of the agenda pack.

 

It was highlighted that the new directorate had been formed in April 2019 and comprised of: IMT; Property; Commissioning / Commercial; and Transformation and Performance. 

 

It was advised that the 10% of the risks that had been deemed 'red' equated to six critical activities, with five of these in IMT and one in Commissioning / Commercial.  Those in IMT had related to old infrastructure, servers and systems which had become high risk.  This was now being addressed and the Fixing the Basics programme had focused on urgent upgrades.

 

The other critical activity had related to resources and capacity in the Commissioning / Commercial Team.  Demand in the Team had increased over recent years without a corresponding increase in capacity.

 

In response to questions, the following points were noted:

 

• Work was being undertaken to rationalise the County Council's estate.  The co-location of the blue light collaboration project was highlighted as a success.
• It was advised that most of the Fix the Basics programme should be completed within three months.  However, there were some further areas of activity which had been highlighted as part of this project and it was hoped that these would be completed within twelve months.
• It was highlighted that the Council had recently agreed its ten year Corporate Plan, in which property management was a component. 
• It was likely IMT would remain as an amber / red risk in future, as it was a complex area, with ever changing circumstances.   However, as projects progressed they would move into the green. 
• It was confirmed that the Council would support the farm estate tenants through the challenges of the withdrawal from the European Union.

 

Place

 

The Executive Director – Place's key messages were outlined on pages 32 – 33. 

 

The Executive Director advised that most services delivered were universal services and this had created a high level of customer demand and expectation.  The Executive Director was pleased to report there had been a reduction in the number of formal complaints received. 

 

It was recognised that there was a need to improve the flow of information between officers and councillors.

 

Across all the services there was an element of uncertainty in that external factors could create pressures on service activity.  For example, the level of rainfall over the last twelve months had added a significant burden onto the drainage systems across the County and as a consequence a significant rise in Section 19 investigations and resultant identified necessary works. 

 

In response to questions, the following points were noted:

 

• It was advised that through the new Highways 2020 contract, it was anticipated that councillors would be provided with a user friendly dashboard to enable them to report and track issues within their community.  Customers would continue to report faults via the fix my street interface.
• Environment, Resilience and Climate Legacy was likely to remain as an amber risk, as it was an ever changing environment.

 

Fire, Rescue and Public Protection

 

The Chief Fire Officer's key messages were detailed on page 34 of the agenda pack.

 

It was advised that the Directorate was formed in April 2019 and covered: Fire and Rescue; Emergency Planning and the Lincolnshire Local Resilience Forum; Coroner's Service; Birth, Deaths and Marriage Registrations; and Public Protection.

 

It was highlighted that succession planning had been identified as a red risk, which had primarily related to middle manager levels such as station managers, but also to key specialist areas such as fire protection.  Work was underway to consider criteria, progression frameworks and remuneration to make key managerial roles more attractive.

 

The asset management system project had been identified as a red risk, owing to the high obligations Fire and Rescue had to manage the safety of its critical equipment under regulations such as LOLER [Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998] and PUWER [Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998].  The Committee was assured this would be completed by June 2020.

 

Corporate

 

The Chief Executive's key messages were detailed on page 35. 

 

The Chief Executive highlighted that the directorate's objective was to drive the accomplishment of the Council's Corporate Plan, embedding the One Council approach to ensure services were working together more effectively for the people of Lincolnshire.  This would be completed through effective communication with residents and partners.

 

The Chairman thanked the Chief Executive and Executive Directors for their attendance at the meeting.

 

RESOLVED

 

That the update be noted.

 

(NOTE: At this point in proceedings, the Committee adjourned from 12.25pm to 12.40pm.

 

At this stage, Councillor A J Spencer left for the remainder of the meeting.)