Agenda item

2018-19 Quarter 4 Finance and Performance Improvement Report & ‘Delivering for Doncaster’ Booklet

Minutes:

The Director of Corporate Resources introduced the report informing the Committee it represented a positive year-end with a £2.1m underspend and the majority of Performance Indicators on track. The key areas of success and areas of challenge detailed in the report were also highlighted. The Chair invited Members of the Committee to ask questions on the content of the report.

 

Connected Council

 

The Committee enquired about the strategies in place to reduce the number of agency staff employed by the Council for more than 6 months.  It was reported that the direction of travel for spend on agency staff was positive and there had been a reduction with overall spend down from £4.68m in 17/18 to £3.19m for 18/19.

 

The use of agency staff was still necessary in certain areas such as ICT, Adult Social Care and social services where there were skills shortages. Management were aware of the issue and were monitoring carefully and undertaking a range of measures to address this. In Adult Social Care, the use of agency staff was reviewed on a monthly basis by the management team to monitor need and effectiveness. It was recognised that the Council was trying to improve the resilience of its work force to reduce the use of agency staff but struggled to recruit to some specific posts.

 

It was noted that 61% of the Council’s workforce was over 45 years old and Members queried whether the skills and knowledge of experienced employees were being fully utilised and whether processes were in place to ensure effective workforce management and training and skills assessment. It was reported that the Council would need to be more dynamic moving forward in the management of its work force. Whilst there were positive aspects of having a stable workforce, bringing new people in to the organisation often lead to the introduction of new ideas. This had been noted through the Council’s involvement with the National Graduate Trainee Programme where talented individual’s had been given the opportunity to bring fresh ideas to the Council during their placements.

 

Members asked how the Council encouraged wider customer interaction in the communities. Reference was made to Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa being used to respond to queries relating to bin collections. This ongoing trial was helpful in identifying the types of questions and queries the public may raise when contacting the Council.

 

The introduction of digital support in the one stop shop had resulted in an improved customer offer by reducing the wait for face-to-face customer services.

 

Reference was made to the number of internal Audit recommendations completed within the stated period and asked how these were being effectively reviewed by the Audit Committee. It was reported that this referred to completion within agreed timescales rather than non-completion. The Audit Committee ensured the most significant recommendations were competed on time. Historically there had been a significant number of recommendations outstanding but this had now significantly reduced.

 

Doncaster Working and Doncaster Living

 

Peter Dale Director of Regeneration and Environment identified the key highlights and challenges identified within the report relating to the Directorate.

 

Whilst recognising the target for the net number of new houses built had been exceeded, Members asked whether this could lead to negative factors such as flooding the local house market thereby stagnating the economy. It was reported that house building was driven by demand and currently there was no evidence indicating new houses were not being bought. Developers knew how to effectively assess this risk. The recent Housing Needs Study had however, identified a gap in delivering sufficient affordable housing to meet demand. It was explained that as more houses were built, Section 106 agreements would support the building of affordable houses but there was still a gap in meeting demand. Further work would be undertaken to identify ways of developing a programme to inject funding in to this area to encourage more affordable housing and to reduce the gap. Further work was also required to identify where affordable housing was required.

 

Members asked about implications for perceived over development in certain areas in communities and mechanisms in place to encourage developments in other areas preferred by the local community. It was reported that development was driven by the Local Plan and local Neighbourhood Plans that supported an integrated approach to Planning. Neighbourhood Plans took precedence over the Local Plan and this provided an opportunity for communities to help identify and guide development in their local areas. The Council was able to support this process, which helped balance the needs of the wider Borough with local communities.

 

The Committee requested an update on fly tipping and measures in place to reduce this and maximise use of Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRC). It was reported that increased fly tipping was a national issue. Locally, there were no restrictions on residents using the 6 centres across the Borough for depositing household waste. It was suggested that many fly tipping incidents related to commercial waste. Recent changes to the permit system allowed vans and trailers and signed vans to deposit household waste at HWRCs where this was not in connection with their business. Restrictions in respect of residents depositing bags of rubble have also been relaxed. Communication with residents in respect of the facilities available at HWRCs was identified as a key issue in addressing fly tipping.

 

The Committee was also updated on enforcement work, which played a role in discouraging fly tipping. Just under 12,000 fixed penalty notices were issued in 2018/19 and 55 prosecutions undertaken. Members were informed that further work would be undertaken in future to learn from those areas that are managing fly tipping effectively and develop a plan/strategy to better manage this across the Borough

 

Members referred to the lack of data available within the Outcomes Framework section of the “Delivering For Doncaster” Booklet and questioned the value of this. It was reported that there was a lag on receiving some data however, this information would ultimately become available and was helpful in informing our long-term direction.

 

Doncaster Caring

 

In respect of the new ALMO arrangements with the Doncaster Children’s Services Trust (DCST) the Committee asked how it would seek to deliver value for money through economy, efficiency and effectiveness. It was reported that the DCST was working positively with the Council to align its priorities and medium term financial plan. It had a rebased budget for 2019/20 and would be working to identify and deliver future efficiencies. Whilst the numbers of looked after children had reduced recently, DCST was aware of the volatility of its budget and how this was driven by need which can change when supporting families and children at short notice. In particular, out of area placements were difficult to predict of due to the nature of the need and were often very costly. Plans were in place to develop a whole system placement strategy to address this jointly with the Council.

 

Members asked about the measures in place to manage future care ladder costs. The reduction in Looked After Children was again identified as a positive improvement however, it was expected that this reduction would plateau. In respect of Adult Social Care, it was reported that Quarter 4 had seen a reduction in residential care. Moving forward the service had an appropriate budget and would need to ensure this was robustly managed, reviewed and used to deliver the Transformation programme. It was important this was delivered effectively and in partnership with other agencies and services.

 

Members were also updated on issues around pooling of budgets with the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). It was reported that formalised processes, such as Section 75 agreements for pooling resources and delegating certain NHS and local authority health-related functions to the other partner(s) had been considered. However, it was considered that the current advantages of these type of arrangements were outweighed by the bureaucracy around them. Current arrangements for the alignment of budgets or joint commissioning of Health and Social Care Services appeared to be working effectively.

 

Members sought assurances that the culture in social services was moving to one of early intervention. Patrick Birch reported that conversations were taking place with individuals before they entered the care system to identify early intervention. The effectiveness of the current strategy had been seen in the number of residential places, which had reduced in the last 3 years from approximately 1600 to 1200 by using intermediate care as an alternative. It was recognised that more work needed to be undertaken in terms of demand management and undertaking initial contacts. It was reaffirmed that for Children’s social care a whole family approach and early identification of family needs is necessary and work was underway in these area.

 

Members asked for an update on the Adult Market Position Statement. It was reported this was currently work in progress and would incorporate community specific issues.

 

The Committee enquired about the role of the voluntary and community sector in supporting Adult social care. It was reported that the diverse nature of the organisations meant this could be very complex to work effectively, although improvements had been made in building capacity. Further work needed to be undertaken to identify those organisations the Council needed to work with more closely.

 

Doncaster Learning

 

The Committee referred to figures, which showed 18.8% of young people missed more than 19 days of the school year. (the National average stands at 13.6%). Following targeted work by the Local Authority a downward trend was emerging in terms of absenteeism. All secondary schools had signed up to an inclusion charter which commits them to working in partnership and as a system to address issues like absenteeism and exclusions.

 

It was reported that the local authority was responsible for children after the 6th day of an exclusion. The Council was committed to providing effective support for these children and continued to look for alternative quality learning provision. It had been identified that learning centre provision was not having the required impact and was now being decommissioned and replaced with an alternative provision framework. This would provide support to children before the point of being permanently excluded and could also be used following the exclusion. The role of Pupil Referral Units had also been reviewed to ensure they were more effective to support children with behaviour issues back into school. Other provision and early intervention such as Big Picture Learning and building on the work of EPIC to identify positive engagement activities and undertake work with families to identify early support was identified as a positive way forward.

 

The Committee was informed that a whole system approach with partners and services identifying issues and responding early was seen as the most appropriate way of addressing these issues and often permanent exclusions or poor attendance were symptoms of other issues happening within the family.

 

Members were informed that exclusions and absenteeism could arise from a range of issues such as low aspirations and poor parenting.

It was reported that there was a variance in the way behaviour was managed in schools and many permanent exclusions resulted from low level persistent disruption in classrooms. The Council was working with Academies and Multi Academy Trusts to address this issue and look at ensuring effective provision existed for children who had been excluded or are at risk of exclusion.

 

The Chair thanked those present for their contribution and to officers for responding to the issues raised by Members.

 

RESOLVED that:-

 

The Chair and Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee note the quarter 4 performance and financial information, including:

 

a)         The changes to the Strategic Risks detailed in paragraph 45 and Appendix B;

 

b)         The new additions to the Capital Programme, detailed in Appendix A – Financial Profile;

 

c)         The virement for approval as per the Financial Procedure Rules, detailed in Appendix A – Finance Profile;

 

d)         The carry forwards approved by the Chief Financial Officer, detailed in Appendix A – Finance Profile;  and

 

e)         The Brexit dashboard at Appendix D.

 

 

 

Supporting documents: