Agenda item

To consider a report by the Strategic Planning Team Manager (copy enclosed) which seeks the Committee’s observations on the performance management framework for the Council’s Corporate Plan 2017-2022.

10:35am – 11:05am

The Lead Member for Finance and Performance introduced the report (previously circulated) which sought the Committee’s views on the framework drawn-up to performance manage the delivery of the Council’s new Corporate Plan 2017 – 2022.  During his introduction the Lead Member drew members’ attention to Appendix 1 to the report which outlined each of the five priorities and detailed the baseline (Current State) from which the journey to deliver the priorities would commence, and the proposed success threshold (Future State) which would signify the end of the journey and the priorities’ delivery.  For the purpose of supporting the delivery of the priorities a set of specific indicators had been developed to assist the Council to evaluate progress and overall achievement of its ambitions, these were included in Appendix A to the report.  At this early stage in the Plan’s delivery a number of these indicators were registering baseline performance, however as work progressed over time the aim would be to see performance against the indicators continually improving.  With the passage of time the ultimate aim would be to move the direction of performance against each indicator from ‘red’ to ‘green’.  Scrutiny had a key role to play in securing continuous good performance and the delivery of the Corporate Plan, as did Cabinet and the Programme Boards established to oversee its delivery.  Performance monitoring reports would be submitted to Scrutiny on a quarterly basis, and if it had concerns regarding any aspect of the Plan’s delivery it could instruct the relevant service(s) to attend Scrutiny to discuss with members the reasons behind slippages or poor performance. 

Whilst the Corporate Plan was the Council’s own strategic plan its delivery was not wholly within its gift, elements of certain priorities were dependent upon partners e.g. registered social landlords (RSLs), private developers, national government, Health Board, private business, utility companies etc.     

Responding to members’ questions the Lead Member and the Strategic Planning Team Manager advised that:

·         as part of the development of the Corporate Plan the indicators agreed upon to measure performance and achievement had been guided by deeming what success would eventually look like;

·         they would explore potential methods for including data and explanatory narrative on the graphs themselves for ease of reference purposes;

·         work in relation to supporting carers would be progressed under the auspices of the Communities and Environment Programme Board and would be reported as part of the regular Corporate Plan performance monitoring reports in due course;

·         whilst some members may be of the view that some roads across the county were in poor condition and required urgent maintenance work, the data from Welsh Government (WG) indicated to the contrary.  WG used an independent evaluation system to assess the condition of the county’s roads, this method produced an average-based assessment of their condition, it did not break their condition down on a road by road basis.  The Scrutiny Co-ordinator reminded the Committee that it had resolved at its last meeting to extend an invitation to an official from the WG’s Transport Planning Department to attend a future meeting to discuss with members future capital funding for highways projects.  Confirmation was still awaited from WG officials on their availability to attend a future meeting;

·         whilst the production of the Corporate Plan itself required intensive work from all Council services the compilation of data thereafter should not be too laborious;

·         despite there being no explicit reference to ‘culture’ in the Corporate Plan it would in fact be an intrinsic element within a number of the priorities, particularly the Environment priority as well-being formed part of that priority.  The Public Services Board’s (PSB) Well-being Assessment and its Well-being Plan had a particular focus on culture;

·         the Council was currently doing a piece of work on how it could support and encourage young people to undertake voluntary work within their communities and as part of their studies for the Welsh Baccalaureate.  Members suggested that it may be useful for those tasked with delivering the work relating to young volunteers to liaise with the Council’s Events Team as they were often looking for volunteers to assist at events or knew of organisations within communities who would value giving young people experience through volunteering.  Officers undertook to follow-up this suggestion; and

·         the Council worked on a regular basis with Denbighshire Voluntary Services Council (DVSC) in relation to volunteers and volunteering opportunities.  Officers were also aware of the need to update the volunteer register on the Volunteer website following the retirement of the officer who had been in charge of the website.

The Chief Executive reminded members that the Council, through its ability to persuade all services and officers to work together for the purpose of realising corporate ambitions, had a good track record for delivering its corporate plans.  He was of the view that in the context of the well-being agenda the Authority needed to make more use of volunteers in order to deliver its ambitions for residents.  Some volunteering organisations were adopting a more professional approach towards delivering their services and were therefore reluctant to use volunteers for certain aspects of their work, the Council could therefore seize the opportunity and by being creative and proactive make effective use of volunteers in order to deliver better outcomes for residents.  The Committee:

Resolved: - subject to the above observations to support the content covered by the Current State and Future State descriptions, and the indicators and thresholds detailed in the report prior to their presentation to Cabinet Briefing on 9 April 2018.