Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Corporate Director of Resources, which provided progress towards achieving the key outcomes of the Council’s corporate performance framework and highlighted key messages to inform strategic priorities and work programmes. The report covered performance in and to the end of quarter three, October to December 2021 (for copy see file of minutes).

The Corporate Equalities and Strategy Manager was in attendance to present the report.

Councillor Townsend referred to 62% of EHCP assessments in 2021 were not completed within the statutory 20-week timescale. She indicated that more case workers had been appointed so these figures should show an improvement and asked when they would receive the figures for 2022 and see an improvement.

The Corporate Equalities and Strategy Manager responded that a lot of the requests for assessments did not come in at the same time but the bulk were around Easter time so they should be able to gauge the results 20 weeks after the bulk assessments requests.

Ms Evans referred to the contents of the report and that it was focused around the County Durham Vision but asked if it should be about what it was like to be a young person in County Durham. She then referred to the implications of the climate emergency and there was no evidence in the report of this happening.

The Corporate Scrutiny and Strategy Manager responded that the council were producing a draft of a new Council Plan and part of that process they were looking at the format of the performance report and scrutiny members could input into the format of the report.

The Corporate Equalities and Strategy Manager added that in terms of some of the outputs it was one part of the bigger picture, and they would not present the report to children in the same format. Work would come through the Corporate Parenting Panel that would look at the experiences of children in County Durham, this report reflected the outcomes form the Council Plan.

Ms Evans responded that it may help to present things as they would to a child.

Councillor Walton referred to the increase of 63% in the SEND support and asked if this was a trend year on year or was it due to schools returning.

The Corporate Equalities and Strategy Manager responded that they were monitoring this figure to ascertain if it was a trend or an ongoing issue. These figures were reported quarterly.

The Chair thanked the officer for his presentation.

Resolved: That the overall position and direction of travel in relation to quarter three performance, the impact of COVID-19 on performance, and the actions being taken to address areas of underperformance including the significant economic and wellbeing challenges because of the pandemic be noted.