Agenda item
Performance & Finance Review Quarter 3
The purpose of this report is to provide Members with a corporate overview of Finance and Performance information to support informed decision-making and manage performance effectively. The Performance Report for quarter three of 2011-12 is attached separately for Members.
Minutes:
A report providing a corporate overview of performance and finance information for quarter 3, 2011-12, was presented to the committee by Phil Newby (Director of Strategy, Partnerships and Improvement). Members’ attention was drawn to the supplementary document which set out in full the performance and finance data for this period. This supplementary report reflected the improved method of performance reporting which aimed to provide more relevant and accessible data. Improvements included the provision of more meaningful data regarding public health and a more accessible format for the presentation of data regarding the shortfall of school places within Brent. Work to improve the quality of performance data was on-going and at present there was a focus on developing better local performance indicators (PIs), improving the PIs relating to complaints and revising some of the indicative PIs included for Regeneration and Major Projects. With regard to the financial data for this period, the Council was currently forecasting a breakeven position. This represented a positive development from the position reported at quarter 2 and was due principally to the improvement in the outturn position for Finance and Corporate Services / Central Cervices. At present, the main overspend pressures on the budget included the Adult Social Care transition (£980k), Children’s Social Care legal costs (£830k) and the temporarily accommodation budget (£750k); these demand costs were currently being met by a centrally held provision of £2m. The overspend on schools budget for 2011/12 continued to be about £1.5m; however agreement had been reached with the Schools Forum to bring the schools budget deficit back into balance by the end of 2014/5.
The Chair thanked the officers for their report and commented that the new format was clearer. He added that for future reports, indicators rated as high risk should be accompanied by a brief outline of the reasons for the rating and a summary of actions planned to address these.
During the subsequent discussion, members raised several issues. The Chair noted that there were several performance indicators for Environment and Neighbourhood Services that had been rated as high risk and in particular, incidences of fly tipping were increasing. He queried whether any action had been taken to address these. Phil Newby advised that the way in which the council was required to report on fly tipping was slightly peculiar as it measured both incidences and enforcement action, with a low figure being desirable for the first measure and a high number for the latter. Information on the actions taken to address the performance indicators rated high risk would be forwarded to the Chair/Committee.
Turning to the performance indicators for Adult Social Care, the Chair sought details of why NI32 and NI33 had been rated as high risk. These indicators related to the timeliness of social care assessments for mental health and the subsequent production of care packages. Phil Newby advised that there was a sizable project in operation seeking to better integrate the NHS and Social Care Services and it was hoped that this would improve both the service offered and the quality of performance data. With regard to obtaining performance data from the Social Work system, performance I, this information needed to be manually moved across to the performance management system.
The Chair noted that the number of looked after children placed with in-house foster carers had increased from 103 to 109 and sought details of how this had been achieved. Phil Newby explained that the Head of Service for Placements had investigated what attracted foster carers to an agency and had found that of greatest importance was the quality of support services provided to them. Efforts had subsequently been made to further improve and highlight these services. In addition, the council had undertaken a substantial advertising campaign to attract more foster carers to Brent. The upward trend in the number of in-house adopters was also reflected in the downward trend in the number of children placed with independent fostering agencies.
RESOLVED: -
That the report be noted.
Supporting documents:
- 2012-03-21 Report - Performance Finance review Q3, item 6. PDF 87 KB
- pfr-q3-supplementary, item 6. PDF 1 MB