Agenda item

The Committee received a report of the Chief Executive which presented members with an overview of 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 four, 2022/23, January to March 2023 (for copy see file of Minutes).

Councillor Crute noted the reduction in the completion of care act assessments and stated that this needed to be monitored. With regards to social care, Councillor Crute advised that members of the CYPOSC had raised concerns with the volume of cases children’s social workers were responsible for and suggested that caseloads for adult social workers may need to be monitored.

S Tracey, Corporate Equality and Strategy Manager explained that they had received feedback from services which indicated that engagement with the service user had been completed in a timely manner but complex elements around the social work process had taken longer to complete and this had been complicated further by the introduction of a new case management system. The Corporate Equality and Strategy Manager advised that children’s social workers had a different model to adult social workers, noting that children social workers focussed more on safeguarding whereas adult social workers had more service users and focussed on consolidating care.

Councillor Jopling commented on safeguarding and wanted reassurance that users were not turned away despite the high case loads experienced by social workers. She also asked if recruitment had improved. The Corporate Equality and Strategy Manager explained that recruitment for adult social workers was improving but it was still difficult to fill some roles in the service.

Resolved

That Committee noted the following:

·      The overall position and direction of travel in relation to quarter four performance

·      The continuing impact of COVID-19 pandemic recovery and the external international factors driving inflation and cost-of-living on the council’s performance

·      The actions being taken to address areas of underperformance including the significant economic and well-being challenges because of the pandemic and other external factors.