The Committee considered the report of the Strategic Director Families and Wellbeing which detailed the Quarter 2 (July – September 2015) performance against delivery of the Families and Wellbeing Directorate Plan. The performance report was attached as Appendix 1 and set out progress against a suite of agreed key performance indicators.

Introduced by the Strategic Director Families and Wellbeing, the report indicated that the Corporate Plan 2015/16 (and supporting Directorate Plans) had been superseded by the Wirral Council Plan 2020 Vision and they still formed the basis of the in-year performance management framework. A new Performance Management Framework would be developed for the Council Plan once the associated delivery plan had been finalised.

In relation to the performance indicator regarding the rate of referrals to Children’s Social Care, the Head of Specialist Services indicated that the services surrounding assessment had been re-designed to ensure greater planning and assessment turnaround. The assessment rate was now just below the regional average and children were moving more effectively through the process. 

In response to a Member, in relation domestic abuse, the Head of Specialist Services indicated that prior to August 2015, the Department had no Police presence when dealing with domestic abuse referrals, the Police in August introduced a system to log all domestic violence referrals but had no admin support therefore the department had supported them through the August and September periods. Domestic Violence officers were now working alongside Social Work staff in the MASH (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub) and this had, had a massive impact on the amount of referrals received.

In relation to the rates of Children in Need (CIN) and Child Protection Plans, the Director of Children Services indicated that CIN, were cases that without social work or partner intervention were children that would not meet their potential. The local authority had looked at those cases to ascertain whether or not there was a need for a Child Protection Plan, this was partially responsible for the increase in children with a child protection plan since April. 

In relation to the adoption timescales, the Head of Specialist Services indicated that process for adoptions was being improved to ensure that they were dealt with more efficiently there would also be a greater drive to encourage more Special Guardianships.

In response to a Members question, the Director of Childrens Services indicated that the family intervention services would be picked up as part of Phase 2 following the successful Troubled Families initiative. Phase 2 was now in progress and included managing issues of neglect within families.

In preparation for Phase 2, the intensive family intervention service had been rolled out and the service had undergone a major re-design with staffing etc.. It was hoped that the RAG rating would be Green from October 2016.

In relation to the target on smoking cessation a Member sought assurances that the new contract would be effective and that this would be monitored to ensure it was fit for purpose and had successful outcomes.

In relation to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33

The Committee considered the report of the Strategic Director Families and Wellbeing which detailed the Quarter 1 (April – June 2015) performance against delivery of the Families and Wellbeing Directorate Plan. The performance report was attached as Appendix 1 and set out progress against a suite of agreed key performance indicators.

Introduced by the Team Leader – Performance/Scrutiny, the report set out a series of amendments to the Families & Wellbeing Directorate Plan 2015/16.  These were as a result of the impact of the final 2014/15 year-end performance data and the development of the technical specification for the performance measures within the plan. The amendments were set out as Appendix 2.

The Corporate Plan 2015/16 (and supporting Directorate Plans) had been superseded by the Wirral Council Plan 2020 Vision and they still formed the basis of the in-year performance management framework. A new Performance Management Framework would be developed for the Council Plan once the associated delivery plan had been finalised.

In relation to the performance indicator regarding the rate of Children in Need (CIN) per 10,000, the Director of Children’s Services indicated that Wirral had a high number of CIN children which were currently under review, following this review some children could ‘step down’ to (early help) and others could ‘step up’ to a child protection plan as they may have a greater need. 

In response to a Member, in relation to the backlog of change of circumstances claims in relation to adults with learning disabilities, the Director of Adult Social Services indicated that there had been a problem implementing the new system, however the new team were now working on the backlog and improving processing times.

In relation to the number of hospital admissions (10-24 year olds as a result of self-harm), the Children’s Services Director indicated that head teachers had raised concerns, in particular about the lack of information given about their pupils who had presented to hospital for treatment as a result of self-harm. The Department had developed a pathway for children who self-harm and delivered a training program with schools to ensure that where possible that if a child was admitted information would be shared.

In response to a Member in relation to the take up of universal infant free school meals, the Director of Children’s Services indicated that she would provide a briefing note in relation to this and an update in relation to pupil premium.

In response to Members, the Team Leader – Performance/Scrutiny agreed to re-circulate the data regarding opiate users which had been omitted from the report

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.

The Committee considered the report of the Strategic Director of Families and Wellbeing and the Director of Public Health which provided an update in relation to the 2014/15 performance of the Families and Wellbeing and Public Health Directorate against the delivery of their Directorate Plans for 2014/15 whilst also providing an update of current performance as at Year End 2014/15.

The report translated the priorities set out in the Directorate Plans into a coherent and measurable set of performance outcome measures and targets. Members were requested to consider the details of the report and highlight any issues.

The Directorate Plan 2014/15 Performance Report set out performance against 57 outcome measures for 2014/15, 32 were rated green, 12 were rated amber and 11 were rated red whilst 2 were currently unrated. The measured 11 rated red had action plans which referred to:

·  Smoking Quitters (4 weeks)

·  Proportion of opiate drug users that left drug treatment successfully who do not re-present to treatment within 6 months

·  Achievement gap between pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) and their peers achieving at key Stage 2

·  % of Looked After Children achieving KS2

·  The % of LAC achieving expected levels at Key Stage 4

·  Inequality of achievement of a Level 2 qualification by the age of 19 (FSM)

·  Inequality of achievement of a Level 3 qualification by the age of 19 (FSM)

·  Timeliness of Adoptions, within 12 months of decision date

·  Average monthly bed days lost due to delayed transfers of care per 100,000

·  Overall satisfaction of carers with social services

·  Proportion of people who use services who find it easy to find information about support

A Member asked that in relation to the target set for smoking quitters, was there a discussion to be had as to making this a more achievable target. In response, the Director of Public Health indicated that the target was set nationally however these targets were to be re-defined to reflect the impacts of e-cigarettes. She further indicated that they were currently looking to see if the services currently provided could be commissioned in a different way to reflect the increased usage of e-cigarettes; this piece of work would be brought back to Cabinet for decision in July 2015.

In relation to the target relating to the achievement gap for those children in receipt of receiving FSM (free school meals) against those who were not, the Director of Children’s Services indicated that in KS2 the gap in terms of Reading and Maths had shown a reduction year on year but this was not the case with writing. The impacts since the introduction of the Pupil Premium was improving and helping the target outcomes.

In relation to the average monthly lost bed days due to delayed transfer, the Director of Adult Social Services explained that people were in hospital longer than they needed to be, however, the Council was now in a position to organise same day domiciliary care and there was also an integrated discharge team; the Department  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6

The Committee considered the report of the Strategic Director of Families and Wellbeing and the Director of Public Health which provided an update in relation to the 2014/16 performance of the Families and Wellbeing and Public Health Directorate against the delivery of their Directorate Plans for 2014/16 whilst also providing an update of current performance (as at 31st January 2015) against the 2014/16 Directorate Plan.

The report translated the priorities set out in the Directorate Plans into a coherent and measurable set of performance outcome measures and targets. Members were requested to consider the details of the report and highlight any issues.

The Directorate Plan 2014/15 Performance Report set out performance against 57 outcome measures for 2014/15, 29 were rated green, 8 were rated amber and 4 were rated red whilst 16 were currently unrated. The measures 4 rated red had action plans which referred to:

·  Smoking Quitters (4 weeks)

·  Proportion of opiate drug users that left drug treatment successfully who do not re-present to treatment within 6 months

·  Timeliness of Adoptions, within 12 months of decision date

·  Average monthly bed days lost due to delayed transfers of care per 100,000

In relation to the average monthly bed days lost due to delayed transfers of care per 100,000, the Chair indicated that a piece of work had been added to the work programme to look at hospital admissions.

RESOLVED:

The 2014/16 Families and Wellbeing Directorate Plan Performance Management Report be noted.

The Committee considered the report of the Strategic Director of Families and Wellbeing and the Director of Public Health which provided an update in relation to the 2014/15 performance of the Families and Wellbeing and Public Health Directorate against the delivery of their Directorate Plans for 2014/15 whilst also providing an update of current performance (as at 31st December 2014) against the 2014/15 Directorate Plan.

The report translated the priorities set out in the Directorate Plans into a coherent and measurable set of performance outcome measures and targets. Members were requested to consider the details of the report and highlight any issues.

The Directorate Plan 2014/15 Performance Report set out performance against 57 outcome measures for 2014/15, 30 were rated green, 5 were rated amber and 5 were rated red whilst 17 were currently unrated. The 5 measures rated red had action plans which referred to:

·  NHS Health Checks – Take Up

·  Smoking Quitters (4 weeks)

·  Proportion of opiate drug users that left drug treatment successfully who do not re-present to treatment within 6 months

·  Timeliness of Adoptions, within 12 months of decision date

·  Average monthly bed days lost due to delayed transfers of care per 100,000

In relation to the take up of Health Checks, the Public Health Manager indicated that there had been a 43% increase on Quarter 2 and it was hoped that this target would be in ‘amber’ possibly ‘green’ by Quarter 4.

In relation to smoking quitters and E-Cigarettes, the Public Health Manager indicated that these had attracted very mixed views nationally as to whether or not these were actually helpful or harmful to smoking quitters. Performance was down across the country, the Department had asked for more evidence on this to see if they actually did aid smoking cessation. Meetings were also being held with Wirral Community Trust to see if there was a need to offer a different smoking cessation provision. The Public Health Manager indicated that there could be a possible re-commissioning of services, following an examination as to why they were not performing.

The Chief Executive of Wirral Community Trust commented that they were seeing a reduction in people accessing smoking cessation services, however there was a falling number of smokers in Wirral.

Members commented that this target may need to be revised as they felt this was an unrealistic target and despite the Council’s best efforts it was consistently reporting ‘red’

.

In relation to the timeliness of adoptions, The Director of Children’s Services indicated that the Department was monitoring each child placed for adoption and was confident that an improvement in this indicator would be achievable by March 2015.