Agenda and minutes

To confirm the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Panel meeting held on 24 September 2015 (enclosed)

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Panel meeting held on 24 September 2015 be confirmed as a correct record for signing by the Chair

Members are reminded of their responsibility to declare any pecuniary interest in respect of matters contained in this agenda.

If you have a pecuniary interest you must withdraw from the meeting. Normally you should leave the room before the business starts to be discussed. You do, however, have the same right to speak as a member of the public and may remain in the room to enable you to exercise that right and then leave immediately. In either case you must not seek to improperly influence a decision on the matter.

No declarations of any interest were declared.

Report of the Chief Executive (enclosed)

Councillor Graham Dunn, Executive Member (Customer and Advice Services) will be in attendance at the meeting to answer questions of the Panel.

The Chair welcomed Councillor Dunn, Executive Member (Customer and Advice Services) and Fiona Daniels (Housing Options and Support Manager) to the meeting who were attending to answer questions in relation to the Welfare Reform report.

Councillor Dunn reported that the Council was in a good place for dealing with the continuing changes that Welfare reform brought about and said that this was largely due to the steer of colleagues, especially the Leader of the Council and the dedication, hard work and diligence of officers in the housing services team.

What the authority is currently doing goes beyond any statutory requirements and has incurred some additional costs that the Council are committed to providing to ensure that the work being carried out is cost effective. It is expected that around 330 people will be affected by further welfare reform changes with average losses of £2,576 per annum. These cuts will affect families that are already on a low income and who may end up presenting themselves to the Council in the future for support.

It was acknowledged that the Government has agreed to an increase in the minimum hourly wage but it is considered that any rise would be wiped out by a rise in inflation. This is also wholly dependent on how employers react to paying more per hour and there is a worry that employee’s hours will be reduced to offset any increase.

The Member Learning Session on welfare reform that was recently held is to be repeated for those Members who could not attend and it is expected that further training and guidance will be rolled out over the years to keep members fully updated with the changes and how the Council is progressing in effectively supporting its residents who are affected. The Welfare Reform agenda aims to reform the welfare and pensions system to ensure that it pays to work while protecting the most vulnerable members of society.

A Welfare Reform Partnership has been created which included representatives from local Registered Providers, DWP and third sector organisations along with officers from the Council. This partnership is responsible for contributing to the delivery of the Welfare Reform action plan developed to mitigate the impact of the initial welfare reform changes. In addition, the Council has signed up to a Delivery Partnership Agreement that was negotiated with the DWP to support the introduction of Universal Credit in Chorley for new claimants and mitigate any potentially negative impact for residents. The Council has supported Universal Credit claimants to apply on line and handled a significant number of referrals for personal budgeting support. Welfare reform is evolving, so the Council has been seeking all avenues to create awareness of the programme including the involvement of the private sector and third sector organisations such as the food bank.

The action plan identified four areas for focus as the main challenges identified for the authority and Councillor Dunn gave an appraisal of the work being undertaken and key challenges being addressed by the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.OSP.11

Report of the Chief Executive (enclosed)

The Chief Executive submitted a report that set out performance against the delivery of the Corporate Strategy, and key performance indicators during the second quarter of 2015/16, 1 July to 30 September 2015. The report also provided a summary of the results of the 2015 Residents Survey and the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IOMD) 2015.

Overall performance of 2014/15 was good with 89% of projects on track or complete. Only two projects were rated as amber, ‘develop and agree plans for delivery of the Friday Street Health Centre’ and deliver improvements to ‘Market Street’ and it was explained that these ratings were due to issue relating to funding and scope, but in each case actions to address these issues had been identified and were being progressed.

Overall performance on the Corporate Strategy indicators and key service delivery measures was excellent, with 95% of the Corporate Strategy indicators and 90% of key service measures performing above target or within the 5% tolerance. The only Corporate Strategy measure performing below target was the percentage of people who regularly participate in volunteering which was reported against the resident’s survey indicator. An action plan has been developed and was included within the report to outline to Members what action would be taken to improve performance.

One key service delivery measure performing below target is the average working days per employee per year lost through sickness absence. Again a plan was included that outlined the actions being taken to improve performance and although the still relatively low, this figure did appear to be increasing and the Panel discussed the possibility of looking into this in more detail.

Overall performance of the indicators in the Resident’s survey 2015 was excellent with 89% of the indicators performing above target or within the 5% tolerance. Similarly the Indices of Multiple Deprivation results were positive and showed Chorley to be less deprived with only 8 areas now in the bottom 20% compared with 10 in 2010.

Members were pleased with the Council’s continuing good performance of delivering the Corporate Strategy and were confident that the action plans put into place for those areas that were slightly underperforming would improve performance.

RESOLVED

1.    That the report be noted.

2.    That a mini review of Employee Sickness Absence be undertaken in 2016 and the Work Programme updated accordingly.