COUNCIL PLAN OVERVIEW REPORT

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q2 2021 - 22

July – September 2021

 

 

 

Chief Executive:

Timothy Wheadon

Contents

 

Section 1: Chief Executive’s Commentary. 2

Section 2: Chief Executive’s Office. 6

Section 3: Budget Position. 8

Section 4: Strategic Themes. 13

Value for money. 13

Economic resilience. 14

Education and skills. 15

Caring for you and your family. 17

Protecting and enhancing our environment 19

Section 5: Corporate Health. 24

a) Summary of People. 24

b) Summary of Complaints. 26

c) Strategic Risks and Audits. 27

 

Key

 

	Performance is very good
	Performance is causing concern
	Performance is weak
	RAG rating not applicable
	Missing data
	Missing target

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Section 1: Chief Executive’s Commentary

 

1          Introduction

 

1.1          This report sets out an overview of the council’s performance for the second quarter of 2021/22 (July - September 2021).  The purpose is to formally provide the Executive with a high-level summary of key achievements, and to highlight areas where performance was not matching targets or expectations, along with any remedial action that is being taken.  It complements the detailed Quarterly Service Reports (QSRs) and is based upon the performance data that is available to all Members online.

 

1.2          This quarter the CPOR also includes more detail on the work of the Chief Executive’s Office which would previously have been included in the Central Directorates QSR.  However, reporting arrangements have been changed to allow for separate reports for the Place, Planning and Regeneration and Resources Directorates.

 

1.3          As everyone will know the council continues to function in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and many Members and staff continue to focus on leading our community response, nevertheless the council’s strategic objectives continue to progress well overall.  This is the second quarterly report of the 2021/22 financial year and at the end of the second quarter progress showed:

 

▪    96 actions (90%) are green (6 complete, 90 in progress)

▪    9 actions (9%) are amber (in progress)

▪    1 action (1%) is red (in progress)

 

1.4          Section 3 of this report contains information on the performance indicators across the council for each of the strategic themes.  Again, the picture was positive particularly in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.  The status for the key indicators in the Council Plan in the first quarter is:

 

▪    21 (72%) green

▪    4 (14%) amber

▪    4 (14%) red

 

25   further indicators have no set target or data is currently unavailable.

 

 

2.         Overview of Q2 and what went especially well

 

2.1       Overall, teams delivered services to a high standard during the period, especially in response to Covid-19.  I have highlighted here a small selection of examples from across the organisation.

 

2.2       The “Bracknell Forest Giants” event in the town centre was successfully staged as part of the council’s economic reactivation programme in August.  The 10-day event saw three major instillations in the town, along with a full and varied events programme.  The event achieved national press coverage, saw increased spend and footfall in the town, and received great user feedback.  Other projects to support the economic recovery as part of the “Welcome Back Funding” are being developed in other locations particularly Crowthorne.

 

2.3       Our full allocation of £3.6m Additional Restrictions Grant £3.6m from central government has been paid out to local businesses, attracting an additional £800k to help those small businesses most in need over the remainder of this financial year.  We are continuing to pay grant to businesses who were slow in coming forward to claim the grant and are currently assessing options to pay the remaining sum of £0.5m by the end of the financial year.

 

2.4       The property Joint Venture with Countryside continues to make good progress developing detailed delivery plans for the Coopers Hill and Market Street sites.  It is expected that a final site delivery plan including updated financial inputs and returns for Coopers Hill will be presented to the Council for formal consideration later in 2021, with Market Street following early in 2022, subject to planning approval being granted.

 

2.5       The Health and Wellbeing Strategy is due for publication in January 22.  The Public health programme review is taking place informed by the Health and Wellbeing Strategy, JSNA and the national Public Health new system priorities.  The overall “Health in All Policies” (HiAP) approach and Terms of Reference have been agreed.  There will be an initial focus on developing a Health Impact Assessment approach as well as HiAP being considered in the council procurement guidelines.

 

2.6       The council was nominated in three categories for the South East Energy Efficiency Awards reflecting the work of the Sustainable Energy Officer, Hazel Hill, to secure funding to improve the energy efficiency of some of our most vulnerable residents’ homes.  The awards (held on 1 October 2021) resulted in both a commendation for the council’s work in this area, and a win in the individual category recognising Hazel Hill’s efforts.

 

2.7       Within Parks and Countryside the new menu was launched in the rebranded Woodlarks Café at The Look Out, Swinley Forest along with a new Look Out booking system (Digitickets).  To date this has worked well and there has been a good response to the new menu.  Three film/TV productions were filmed in the borough’s green spaces.  Tree enquires remain high however, creating some backlog.  Work is being prioritised to deal with the most important and urgent issues.

 

2.8       Work continues to deliver on the actions from the Workforce Plan including finalising the Learning and Development Strategy and a new project focused on reducing agency spend.  The Learning and Development Strategy has been informed by a skills survey which provided a response rate of over 50% and by consulting directly with managers across the council to ensure all mandatory and compulsory training requirements are covered.  The strategy will be finalised in the next quarter.

 

2.9       In picking out these highlights there is a real danger of overlooking the special efforts of teams who are not mentioned.  The simple fact is that the whole organisation continues to adapt very well and is delivering effective services.

 

What are we doing about things not going so well?

 

3.1       Within Highways and Transport progress on the A322 Sports Centre Roundabout improvement scheme has been slightly delayed.  However. design and planning work is well underway for a full refurbishment of the A322 Birch Hill junction traffic signals.  

 

3.2       The bounce back of the economy has created some issues with supply chain, labour and energy across the whole country.  Local mitigation plans are being developed to address this emerging pressure, including in relation to sourcing IT equipment which has become a global problem.

 

 

 

Forward Look

 

Going forward, the council’s strategic objectives will continue to progress in the coming weeks alongside the council’s community response to Covid-19 which has also been incorporated into department service plans and reporting.

 

Timothy Wheadon

Chief Executive

Section 2: Chief Executive’s Office

 

Assistant Director’s Overview

 

Staff have continued to work effectively almost exclusively from home during Quarter 2, though an increasing number of staff started to return to the office for a day a week from July.

 

During Quarter 2 the business change team’s focus has moved back to supporting the transformation programme having been deployed to support a wide range of Covid response priorities over the last 18 months.  The team have supported the new Executive Director: People to review the focus of the People change programme, while simultaneously enabling delivery of key projects including the high needs block, adult social care conversations model and children’s social care fostering and placements projects.

 

The Business change team support has also been provided to enable the delivery of the Time Square community hub which is due to open to community groups in November 2021 and to the public in January 2022; the Ways of Working programme including hybrid meeting rooms, model office, a new contact management application for EDS and a print service review and the Asset Review programme.

 

The communications and marketing team’s activities have been split in to three main functions during this quarter, which will remain in place for the rest of the year: COVID communications; strategic and significant projects; and events.  The appointment of an additional COVID comms officer and part-time graphic designer has seen BAU communications capacity return to pre-pandemic levels.  The communications and marketing team supported several business-as-usual campaigns, on themes including climate change; regeneration; health and wellbeing; equalities and diversity.

 

The results of the Town & Country survey revealed that 95 per cent of respondents thought the magazine provided valuable and useful information; the magazine was also the most popular channel for council news and information, followed by the council website, leaflets and other publications and social media.

 

The Bracknell Forest Giants event was launched in partnership with The Lexicon in August. The marketing collectively reached 11 million impacts and the social media impact was 14 times higher than the industry average.  It generated 53 press articles, including national coverage in The Telegraph and The Guardian online. 75 per cent of retailers reported significant uplift against 2019 and footfall was up 23.7 per cent compared to 2020 for the same period.

 

The community engagement and equalities team developed recommendations for the ownership and management of the Buckler’s Park Community Hub and facilities and the community centre element of the Binfield Community and Health Hub.  The recommendations were considered by the Executive in October.

 

We have worked in partnership with the CCG and Involve on the development of a community deal approach focussed on enabling communities to further develop self-reliance and take action to address their health and wellbeing needs as a delivery mechanism for the Health and Wellbeing Strategy. 

 

Considerable progress was made on advancing equalities including delivering inclusive conversations unconscious bias training to senior managers, launching the equality allies scheme with 26 staff volunteers, running a public consultation on the organisation’s new equality objectives and supporting the Member’s Equalities Working Group to develop their recommendations on equality, diversity and inclusion and the development of a Mayor’s Charter.  A programme of EqIA training has been delivered to further develop staff capability to conduct EqIAs. 

 

A workshop was held with the Bracknell Forest Civilian Military Partnership to review its TOR, membership and workplan going forward. Progress has been made in working with officers from other Berkshire Authorities in developing the remit of the Royal Berkshire Civilian Military Partnership meeting in November

 

There has been a continued focus of the policy function to support the corporate complaints process.  This has included several investigations and the review of the current complaints policy.

 

Planning is also underway for the upcoming Corporate Peer Challenge, which the council will welcome in November 2021.  Through September, a detail position statement has been developed to reflect on the operations and approach of the council. 

 

COVID 19

 

The communications and marketing team’s main focus continues to be on COVID-19, specifically on promoting health and hygiene safety advice, self-isolation and testing and vaccination including the launch of several vaccine pop-up sites.  They are supported by the engagement team’s Covid engagement activities with specific communities across the borough.

 

Wide ranging and on-going support have been provided to the community associations who manage the Council’s community centres to support their recovery from the pandemic and longer-term sustainability.

 

A significant focus in Quarter 2 has been extending and establishing the processes for distributing government funding linked to welfare.  This has involved aligning the work across the council to agree a single approach, primarily to support children eligible for free school meals with food vouchers over the school holidays.  Much of this support is related to the pandemic, however, the CXO corporate policy function is leading to develop a longer term and sustainable plan for addressing financial hardship across the council.  This is being enabled by the appointment of a dedicated Financial Hardship Project Officer.

 

Section 3: Budget Position

 

REVENUE BUDGET MONITORING

 

The monthly monitoring returns are set out in detail in each directorate’s Quarterly Service Report (QSR). 

Due to the impact of the pandemic on the current years’ budget and the resulting uncertainty, a range of potential outcomes have been considered.  The returns now include estimated best and worst case scenarios which reflect actual expenditure to date plus a range of financial predictions from Assistant Directors covering the remainder of the year.  Across the Council, variances have been identified indicating expenditure is above the approved budget ((£1.553m Best Case and £3.712m Worst Case) after taking into account the Corporate Contingency (£1.155m) and income compensation for the first quarter.  This figure excludes use of the £3.417m balance on the COVID-19 Contingency which would produce an overall variance of -£1.864m Best Case and +£0.295m Worst Case.

Key information around directorate variances being reported follows.

 

Section 4: Strategic Themes

Value for money

 

 

Economic resilience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education and skills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caring for you and your family

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protecting and enhancing our environment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Communities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Covid-19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Section 5: Corporate Health

 

a) Summary of People

 

Staff Voluntary Turnover

 

    * This figure relates to the previous 4 quarters and is taken from the preceding CPOR.

 

Comparator data	%
Total voluntary turnover for BFC, 2020/21:	11.2%
Average voluntary turnover rate UK public sector 2016:	10.0%
Average Local Government England voluntary turnover 2016:	14.0%

    (Source: XPertHR Staff Turnover Rates and Cost Survey 2016 and LGA Workforce Survey 2016)

Staff Sickness

 

Department	Quarter 4 20/21 (days per employee)	Previous Financial Year (Actual Average days per employee)	2020/21 Estimated Annual Average (days per employee)	Notes
People	1.6	5.93	6.4
Delivery	1.14	7.67	4.56
PPR	0.53	2.47	2.12
Resources	1.32	4.65	5.28
Chief Executive’s Office	1.64	2.3	6.56
Total staff sickness excluding maintained schools	1.36	5.67	5.44

 

 

Comparator data	All employees, average days sickness absence per employee
Bracknell Forest Council (Non-Schools) 20/21	5.67 days
English Local Authorities 2017/18	8.6 days

(Source: Local Government Workforce Survey 2017/18)

 

People

Sickness absence has increased slightly since the last quarter.  There have been big jumps in Adult Social Care and Early Help & Communities while Mental Health and Out of Hours has seen a significant reduction.  53% of the sickness remains attributable to long-term sickness.  Covid-19 represents 6% of the absences this quarter which is an increase from the previous quarter.

 

Delivery

Sickness for this quarter has gone up quite significantly since last quarter across most areas of the Directorate.  The percentage of long-term sickness has risen to 42.6% this quarter with a total of 4 members of staff being off long-term during the quarter but only one remains off at the end of the quarter. Covid-19 represents 10.6% of the absence this quarter.

 

Resources

Absence levels have risen in the last quarter.  58% of the absence were attributed to long term sickness (3 members of staff).  27% of the absence was attributable to Covid-19 this quarter.

 

Place, Planning & Regeneration

Absence has risen this quarter compared to last quarter.  51% of the absence was attributed to long term sickness (3 members of staff) and 0.5% was attributed to Covid-19.

 

 

 

b) Summary of Complaints

 

 

People: Adults

There were 14 complaints in quarter 2.  Compared to this time last year, this figure is up from 6.  This is 8 more.

 

People: Childrens

There were 21 complaints in quarter 2.  Compared to this time last year, the figure is up from 18.  This is 3 more. 

 

Central

There were 4 complaints in quarter 2.  Compared to this time last year, the figure is exactly the same. 

 

Delivery

There were no complaints in quarter 2.  Compared to this time last year, the figure is down from 2.

c) Strategic Risks and Audits

During quarter 2 the Register was reviewed by the Strategic Risk Management Group on 4^th November 2021.  The following changes were agreed:

·         To remove the Brexit risks and incorporate any impact from Brexit in the remaining risks;

·         To reduce the COVID risk score.