Agenda item

(To receive a report by Caroline Jackson, Head of Corporate Performance, which invites the Board to consider a report on the 2021/2022 Corporate Plan performance as at 30 September 2021, which will be presented to the Executive on 07 December 2021. The views of the Board will be reported to the Executive as part of its consideration of this item.

This report also sets out the performance of the service level performance indicator for 2021/22 Quarter 2 that is within the remit of the Board)

The Executive Director – Commercial introduced the report and highlighted the work that had been carried out to improve and support the delivery of the Corporate Plan Success Framework, including the introduction of Power BI which was part of the Microsoft suite of programmes which has allowed the Council to better understand and analyse data.  

The Head of Corporate Performance then invited the Board to consider the report on the 2021/2022 Corporate Plan performance as at 30 September 2021, which would be presented to the Executive on 07 December 2021.  The report also set out the performance of the service level performance indicator for 2021/22 Quarter 2 that was within the remit of the Board.

Of the 36 activities with milestones due to be reported, eight were ahead of plan and 28 were on plan.

There had been significant changes with the types of KPI being used in the reporting of the Corporate Plan, in particular a focus on measures which were ‘for context’ which meant that the delivery activity relating to these measures may not be within the direct control of the Council, but were a way of understanding the progress needed to achieve wider ambitions for the residents, communities, businesses and visitors of Lincolnshire.

It was hoped that the change would enable future iterations of the reporting to be developed with Executive Councillors and for agreement to be reached on which, if any, of the context measures require ambitions to be set in order to support targeted change.

Of the KPIs reported, six could be compared with a target that had been set for Quarter 2. Of the six KPI’s that were comparable, there was one KPI that had not met its target - Percentage of people who are unemployed (PI 11). Details were set out within the report.

The Board was advised that Covid-19 had impacted a number of the KPI’s, namely schools Ofsted rating as inspections were ceased during the Covid period. In addition, a number of KPIs were not able to be recorded as a result of Covid-19 and in particular because educational attainment data had not been released.

The relevant performance data had been updated on the Council’s website to provide the public with a more accessible account of performance information across the Council.  The Board received a short demonstration of the website.

The Board considered the report and during the discussion, the following points were noted:

·       In relation to the Government’s financial settlement, it was announced in October 2021 that £4.8bn would be spread fairly evenly over the three years of the spending review period. There were some specific funding announcements such as around supporting families and cyber security, and once these had been taken into account, the remaining amount was around £1.4bn. The Council usually received around 1% of the national funding announcement which would equate to about £14m.

·       There were numerous cost pressures facing the Council, which included Adult Care cost pressures of between £7m and £9m per year, increase in inflation which was expected to peak at around 5% in 2022, and the potential ending of the public sector pay freeze. In addition, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government had recently started to indicate potential changes such as moving away from the localised business rates system which could open the door for a potential fairer funding review which the Council had lobbied for over the last six years due to the County’s rural and sparse nature. Different factors, such as deprivation, would need to be taken into account in a distribution formula. The general levels of reserves held by councils might also impact on a fairer funding distribution formula.

·       A lot of the capital programme expenditure was reliant on Government grants coming from the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Department for Education (DfE). These grants often did not line up with the Government’s announcements on the financial settlement which made it difficult to plan for these areas. The financial settlement for Highways maintenance in 2021/22 was reduced leading to the shortfall being backfilled with local money. There were currently no announcements in relation to the DfT’s settlement for 2022/23 but it was expected to be similar to the current year’s settlement.

·       The United States $1 trillion Infrastructure Bill could have a huge impact on global supply issues and inflation if agreed by the Senate. There were already supply issues impacting on the construction industry and IT, which was already leading to long waiting times for items such as cars and laptops due to the supply issues, as well as the issue of the delivery of the supply and finding tradespeople to undertake the work. Significant increase in demand anywhere globally would impact negatively on global supply which was already insufficient to meet current demand. This would have an impact on the UK and possibly lead to increased inflation as well.

·       There was currently no direct data about the potential US impact on supply but the Council was monitoring the impact on individual programmes from a corporate perspective to understand what those impacts were. The market was also being analysed to try to understand the impact, and currently supply was beginning to slightly even out in some areas but was still very short in other areas. Costs were plateauing but at a higher level, and there was very little expectation that these costs would drop back to previous levels.

·       The capital programme was being monitored regularly including what impact any slippage would have. This was being looked at project by project and programme to see what the overall impact would be on budget setting in future years.

·       The whole life budget position was roughly on target. However, it was too early to understand the full impact on the capital programme from inflation pressures and potential changes in interest rates. There was a need to reach a settled position before making any changes to the capital programme, but the Council would need to absorb some post Covid-19 costs into the capital programme.

·       Power BI was a data manipulation and analysis tool which could also produce visuals of the data analysis. Another product was needed to collect the data from the several different systems used across the Council, and it was being investigated how to make this as automated as possible. In addition, there was a commentary collection process for the lead officer narrative which was another process completed outside of Power BI. Power BI was an efficient and powerful tool which the Council had not been using for very long and was still in the early stages of development. The Performance team would be looking to make it as efficient and effective as possible by reducing the amount of inputting and making it more streamlined. However, there would still need to be an element of data entry by officers due to the volume and variety of data and the requisite commentary.

·       It was recognised that the interactive tool on the website would enable the public to also be able to access all the data available. The interactive tool had been tested against accessibility standards, and had been reviewed and developed so that it was a similar experience to other websites.

·       In relation to the ‘Percentage of people who are unemployed’ (PI 11) measure, it was confirmed that this was a target which the Council had influence over but not direct control. There were several sectors in Lincolnshire which were difficult to recruit to as they were very specific, such as the care sector, hospitality sector, and the transport sector, but the people who were unemployed in Lincolnshire may not possess those necessary skills. There were a number of nationally commissioned programmes to support people from unemployment back into employment, and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) also delivered programmes. The Council was working with the DWP to put on programmes around HGV driving licenses, but this was for a very small number of people. In addition, the HGV driver shortage was compounded by a large number of current drivers retiring for a variety of reasons, and that the role was not seen as very attractive and rest facilities for HGV drivers needed improving. There was a need for Lincolnshire to diversify its employment offer so that it was less reliant on specific sectors, some of which were low paid.

·       There were challenges around the training, skills and courses available which were led by the FE sector. However, the FE sector was funded on lagged learner numbers for the number of people they had on courses in the previous year. Therefore, if the FE sector wanted to put on additional courses around care, hospitality and HGV driving to respond to the demand, then they would not receive the funding for these for another year. The skills agenda was currently led by the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership who had produced a skills strategy. With the possibility of a future Devolution / Levelling Up deal, the Council could bring coherence to a very complicated skills landscape that it could currently only influence and do something completely different if it had the power to do so. In addition to the post 16 sector, there was a need to influence the curriculum post 14 and bring businesses into schools and colleges to develop those relationships. It was suggested that the Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee should consider the skills strategy and what work was being undertaken around the skills agenda. 

·       The direction of travel for monitoring and managing performance had changed with the introduction of business intelligence and changes from a system perspective at an officer level with the establishment of Corporate Leadership Team monthly performance meetings where the information was reported, and all Directorate Leadership Teams were also now required to have monthly performance boards. Some directorates were already fairly advanced in this process, but for some directorates this was a completely new expectation of managers to look and analyse the data and decide what to do about it. The structure and training had been put in place to enable the Council to become much better at its analytical ability and how to improve performance. It was suggested that this needed to brought through scrutiny and the Executive so that this work could be acknowledged by councillors.

·       In relation to ‘Percentage of children in care living within a family environment’ (PI 15) it was confirmed that this included those placed with relatives, foster carers, or with independent foster carers. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a decline in the number of foster carers and independent foster carers, so the Council had to rely on out of county placements. These young people were being closely tracked and careful consideration was being given to how and when to move these young people back into family placements in Lincolnshire to minimise the impact. The Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee had recently discussed this issue at its last meeting on 19 November 2021.

·       It was suggested that a guide for the website should be developed to help the public and Members to navigate through Power BI. It was agreed that the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Board would meet with officers to develop this.

·       It was suggested that a printout of all the performance measures should be included with the report to the Executive. However, it was confirmed that this would be complex and lead to very long reports, plus it would not enable the data to be interrogated in more detail like on Power BI. In addition to the report received by the Board and the Executive, there were quarterly reports on the service level performance measures reported to the relevant scrutiny committees. It was further suggested that training for Members on how to use Power BI should be considered.

·       In relation to former Measure 114 (Percentage of completed safeguarding referrals where source of risk was a service provider), it was agreed that officers would check if this or a similar measure was now included in the Corporate Plan Success Framework. This measure had previously been reported to the Adults and Community Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee. The development of the measures would have been done through a lot of co-production with the Corporate Leadership Team and Assistant Directors to decide what was included in the Corporate Plan Success Framework. It was suggested that consideration be given to whether there was a need for a new safeguarding measure where the source of risk was the service provider if one no longer existed.

·       The clarity provided in the report regarding which measures were for context and which the Council had direct control over was welcomed as this would help to manage expectations.

·       Consideration should be given to altering the wording for those measures which had not achieved their target, as it did not recognise the achievements that had been made while working towards the target.  

·       Concerns were raised that some targets were highlighted as being achieved despite some residents still experiencing issues. An example was given with the measure ‘Percentage of superfast broadband coverage in residential & business premises’ (PI 32) where the target was highlighted as achieved, but there were residents in Lincolnshire who still struggled to access broadband. It was confirmed that this measure was county wide but highly populated areas were more commercially attractive to individual companies as there were huge numbers of customers that they could access and get their money back quickly. The Council was currently working with the Government and BDUK to try to change the fibre to premises model which did not work as well in rural areas, whereas a wireless connection would be much cheaper and simpler to do. It was suggested that the Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee should consider looking at the options for broadband across Lincolnshire.

·       Consideration should be given to reviewing those measures which had already achieved their target to ensure the target was stretching enough. There was a very robust target setting process, but for those measures already significantly overachieving their target early in the year, it was suggested that these targets should be reviewed within year.

RESOLVED:

1.      That the recommendations as set out in the Executive report be supported;

2.      That a summary of the comments made be reported to the Executive for its consideration.