Agenda item

To consider a report (copy attached) from the Strategic Planning and Performance Officer which analyses the Council’s performance against its functions, including Corporate Plan and Strategic Equality objectives and seeks the Committee’s views on the progress to date.

12.15pm – 12.45pm

The Lead Member for Finance, Performance and Strategic Assets introduced the report and appendices (previously circulated) stating that the Council had set itself an ambitious Corporate Plan, which since its approval had become even more of a challenge to deliver given the current financial climate facing local authorities and public services.  

The Head of Corporate Support Service - Performance, Digital & Assets, provided an overview of the progress made, and outlined the challenges that lay ahead against the Corporate Plan themes. She advised that it was a live document, where items were considered as having a red status, they were still being worked upon, it did not mean they had been paused, in some instances progress may be slower for some areas due to budget pressures. Also attached as an appendix to the report was the draft scope for the Panel Performance Assessment for members’ observations.

Responding to members’ questions the Lead Member, Head of Service and other officers explained that:

·       the ‘trauma informed status’ schools referred to an all-society Framework to support a coherent, consistent approach to developing and implementing trauma-informed practice across Wales, providing the best possible support to those who need it most. It related to how schools and individuals within them took into account adversity and trauma, recognising and supporting the strengths of an individual to overcome these experiences in their lives and setting out the support they could expect to receive from the organisations, sectors and systems that they may turn to for help. It did entail training which was quite intensive and dependent on grant funding. One school in Denbighshire had achieved the status to date and two other schools were part way through the process. In June 2023, a programme of two-day school senior leadership training had taken place; 87 senior leaders had been trained between June and November 2023.  The county also had 86 school and county staff who had completed the diploma as Trauma Informed Practitioners. The Council was currently waiting to receive confirmation of the roll out of free general trauma informed awareness training.

·     the main areas of overspend, which contributed to the Corporate and Service budget variant of £2,780,000 at the end of March 2024, continued to be in Education and Children’s Services, Highways and Environmental Services and Adult Social Care and Homelessness. The report presented to the Committee outlined the steps taken in recent months to achieve a balanced budget i,e, voluntary exit schemes, staff savings schemes, the package of savings proposals approved earlier in the year, implementation of spending controls (including vacancy controls).  It was important to remember that the budget was viewed as an evolving process rather than a one-off event in January of every year. Significant engagement on the budget and financial pressure across the Council, with members and with communities would continue.

·     The flexible working policy, which meant that some officers were working from home for some of their time and from Council buildings when Council-business demand it, had been approved by the Council.  This policy enabled staff to have a work/life balance, with the interests of the business being foremost.  It saved the Council money and had freed up office buildings, it also reduced time spent travelling to meetings and between different locations and helped reduce carbon emissions. There were no plans to review the policy at present. The Corporate Director:  Governance and Business advised members that if an officer was not responding to councillors in a timely fashion, they should raise it with the officer’s Head of Service, as working from home should not delay a response.

At the conclusion of the discussion the Committee:

Resolved:  subject to the above to –

(i)  receive the Council’s Performance Self-Assessment report for 2023 to 2024, acknowledging the performance related issues highlighted within the report along with the actions identified to address slippages and/or budgetary pressures; and

(ii)                  support the key messages arising from the Self-Assessment and endorse the draft scope for the Panel Performance Assessment 2024 contained in Appendix IV.