Agenda item

The Council Plan is the organisation’s overarching business plan, setting out the Council’s commitments to achieving certain outcomes during the life of the Plan. The Plan has been reviewed and adjusted to cover the period 2013-15 to take account of recent financial and service developments.   

Discussion:

The Assistant Director Communications, Performance and Partnerships introduced the report advising that it was the council’s overarching business plan which set out the council’s commitments to achieving certain outcomes during the life of the plan. A key area of change was to reduce the number of priorities from five to four, as it was proposed that the previous priority for transport was incorporated into the regeneration priority. The plan contained the usual foreword from the Leader of the council but there was also a new introduction from the Chief Executive. It also referenced the key projects that officers had identified that would deliver the council’s priorities.

The committee was advised of the various proposed deletions and additions from the previous year’s plan and was also informed that there would be a financial section detailing where the council’s main resources would be spent, once the budget for 2013/2014 had been agreed.

Members asked questions and made comments on a variety of measures and priorities in the draft plan, which included:

·        further details of the makeup of the Citizens Panel should be included in the plan

·        clarification of the focus of the new measures for vulnerable people feeling safe and secure (page 2 of Appendix 2). Members considered that it was critical these measures were included in the plan following the recent Winterbourne View Care Home report. However, it should be explicit in the notes as to whether it was a service located in Medway (provided by a private company) or that it was a Medway Council service. Officers confirmed that the measure would seek feedback from adult social care clients whether they received services through direct council provision or, through personalised budgets, from other providers

·        within the children and young people section, Members asked for the same principle to be applied  - to clarify whether it was a school located in Medway or a Medway school (run by the Local Authority), as they both had very different implications for the council

·        concern at the new measure – effectiveness of CAF in meeting the needs of children and young people (page 6 of Appendix 2) – as it was not a service within the sole responsibility of the council which could potentially become a failing target, due to others not performing well

·        further references to public health and the Health and Wellbeing Board should be included in the plan

·        there was no reference to the INSPIRER project

·        concern at the removal of the measure of public satisfaction with Community Officers (page 11 of Appendix 2)

·        recognition that Members would be involved with the selection of routes used to track average journey time along 6 primary transport corridors and that these were intended to cover all of Medway, not just Chatham as was the case now

·        new measure on page 17 of Appendix 2 (number of walking buses) should also include how many children used the walking bus service

·        consideration should be given to whether the new measures (N14 timeliness of assessments and N15 timeliness of Initial Child Protection Conference) should be supplemented by measures capturing outcomes achieved for children as this was often more important to the people involved. Also, that it was better to have a good assessment that took two days longer to complete, than have a rushed assessment in order to comply with the target

·        clarification when reporting the statistics in future on the number of children with SEN placed outside Medway because there was no provision appropriate for them within Medway, as they had complex needs (page 9 of Appendix 1)

·        request that officers review the data for PB8 (number of people receiving support from a Health and Lifestyle Trainer) and PH1 (number of adults taking part in healthy weight and exercise referral interventions) (page 4 of Appendix 2) as there was a possible contradiction in the data currently provided

·        request for further information on NI 123 (rate of self-reported four week smoking quitters aged 16 or over) and whether the number of occurrences reported were separate individuals, or the total number of quits which could count people more than once if they repeatedly stopped and restarted smoking.

Officers provided information and answers to Members questions and agreed to provide further information via a Briefing Note.

Decision:

The committee agreed to:

(a)   endorse the draft Council Plan 2013-2015 and Appendices 1 and 2 and refer the following comments for Cabinet consideration:

(i)           further information should be included in the plan on the constitution of the Citizen’s Panel;

(ii)         reference should be included to the EU project INSPIRER;

(iii)       there should be clear notes in future monitoring reports if partners were responsible for performance results relating to CAF;

(iv)        future measurements should clarify, where appropriate, whether it was a service or school located in Medway rather than a Medway service provided by, or a Medway school run by, the council;

(v)          retain the measure for satisfaction with Community Officers;

(vi)        include how many people also used the walking buses in the new measure for the number of walking buses;

vii)         consideration given to whether the new measures (N14 timeliness of assessments and N15 timeliness of Initial Child Protection Conference) should be supplemented by a measure on the outcomes achieved for children

(b)   request a Briefing Note providing:

(i)           information on whether NI 123 (rate of self-reported four week smoking quitters aged 16 or over) was the number of individuals or the number of times they had tried to quit smoking;

(ii)         information on the Citizen’s Panel, including a breakdown by demographic, gender, ward, etc.