Section 1: Chief Executive’s Commentary

1 Introduction

1.1 This report sets out an overview of the council’s performance for the third quarter of 2021/22 (October - December 2021). The purpose is to formally provide the Executive with a high-level summary of key achievements, and to highlight areas where performance has not matched 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 The council continued to work closely with partners to lead our community response to the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically the significant and rapid rise in the Omicron variant in quarter three, nevertheless the council’s strategic objectives continue to progress well overall. This is the third quarterly report of the 2021/22 financial year and at the end of the third quarter progress in implementing our service plans showed:

▪ 102 actions (90%) are green (8 complete, 94 in progress)

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

▪ 1 action (1%) is red (in progress).

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

▪ 18 (86%) green

▪ 1 (5%) amber

▪ 2 (9%) red.

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

2. Overview of Q3 and what went especially well

2.1 Aside from the council plan actions and indicators, 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 During Q3 our focus has remained on providing effective outbreak management support to high-risk settings such as care homes, supported living providers, schools and retail providers. A December surge in Delta cases, combined with the emergence of the Omicron variant saw a huge increase in positivity rates both within the borough and nationally and a shift in Government policy to Plan B.

2.3 There has been significant pressure and increased work for on the council’s adult social care and commissioning teams to ensure effective, safe, and timely hospital discharges to manage capacity in the acute hospital trusts serving the borough.

2.4 The policy shift to Plan B resulted in a return to working from home for all staff that could work from home following greater use of Time Square office in Q2 and the early autumn. But it also meant having to realign the support and guidance provided to schools and other settings. As restrictions ease, the focus will be on how we transition Covid-19 response services into business as usual whilst still providing the required level of support to settings currently experiencing unprecedented case numbers.

2.5 Another primary focus remains on encouraging vaccine uptake to help reduce the severity of Covid-19 on the general population and drive down transmission rates. The council has been actively supporting the CCG in encouraging vaccine uptake including boosters via its own media channels. We are also currently supporting the CCG with the provision of a mobile vaccine van, ensuring residents have access to medically trained staff, whilst providing an opportunity to discuss any concerns they may have resulting in vaccine hesitancy.

2.6 Q3 saw a significant focus on and engagement with elected members to develop a balanced and sustainable budget for 2022/23. The budget consultation period ran from 15 December to 25 January 2022, following which the final budget proposals will be considered by the Executive and Full Council in February.

A summary of the budget proposals:

- £4.4m is included to cover costs of pay and price inflation, which includes two years of pay awards. (No budget provision was made in the current year as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had announced a public sector pay freeze, though an offer of 1.75% has been made by employers which has not been accepted by unions.)

- Spending pressures of £5.3m have been identified by service areas. The most significant are in the People Directorate and reflect rising costs of social care services that are being seen across the country. In Bracknell Forest the numbers receiving care have been fairly stable over the past two years, but a combination of increasing complexity of care needs and a shortage of specialist provision is driving cost increases, which look set to rise further in the weeks and months ahead.

- Savings of just under £3m have been identified to help mitigate the increases in costs, across many service areas. As in previous years, protecting essential front line service delivery has been a priority. Unlike in some authorities where significant redundancies have been announced, we have again managed to keep the impact on staff to a minimum, with the number of staff potentially affected by the draft proposals being in small single figures.

2.7 The Council welcomed a Local Government Association peer review team during November to assess our strengths and areas for further improvement focussed on five themes: local priorities and outcomes; organisational and place leadership; governance and culture; financial planning and management and capacity for improvement.

2.8 The feedback from the peer review was extremely positive, it highlighted many examples of excellent performance, tangible achievements, and high levels of resident satisfaction. The team were impressed by our ‘can do’ approach and felt that “staff showed genuine pride in working for a very good employer who treats them with respect and relies on them to deliver”. The peer review report has just been finalised and an action plan to address the report’s recommendations is being developed to be for consideration by the Executive in March.

2.9 During late November Ofsted visited the council to inspect of our Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Service (SEND). Ofsted’s inspection report highlighted several areas for improvement including a need to focus on greater co-production of the team’s strategies and plans with families and partners. A SEND improvement plan is being produced to ensure that we are more effective in identifying children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, assessing, and meeting their needs and improving outcomes for them and their families/carers. This will be a major priority over the coming months.

2.10 The Local Plan was submitted to the Secretary of State for examination on 20 December. This marks a significant milestone for this critically important document. Two Inspectors have now been appointed and we expect to be informed of the date of the Examination in Public in the near future. Meanwhile, Planning application numbers remain high, though action is being undertaken on recruitment and IT issues to help reduce the backlog.

2.11 The A322 Sports Centre Roundabout improvement scheme is complete and early indications are that it is working well. In addition, the refurbishment of the A322 Birch Hill junction traffic signals has commenced with a target completion date of early March.

2.12 Entries for the 2022 Lexicon Bracknell Half Marathon were launched in November. The race is scheduled to return to its traditional calendar slot and is schedule for 15 May 2022. Organisers are planning to introduce a mini marathon for primary school aged participants within the footprint of the Lexicon town centre.

2.13 The capital scheme to form the new collaboration space at our Time Square offices completed within quarter 3 to budget, furniture is now in place and the space has been well received by staff. The Depot development project was awarded to the best placed contractor on cost and quality and will commence in quarter 4, planning permission was also granted which has enabled this scheme to stay on programme.

What are we doing about things not going so well?

3.1 Works to spend the £274k government funded Green Home Grant project 2 were delayed again this quarter owing to national infrastructure / administration issues outside of the council’s control. The deadline for completion of all works is currently 31 March 2022, but a further date extension is anticipated.

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 integrated into department service plans and reporting.

Timothy Wheadon

Chief Executive

Section 2: 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 (£1.895m Best Case and £4.042m Worst Case) after taking into account the Corporate Contingency (£0.849m) 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 -£1.522m Best Case and +£0.625m Worst Case.

Key information around directorate variances being reported follows.

Staff Sickness

Department	Quarter 3 21/22 (days per employee)	Previous Financial Year (Actual Average days per employee)	2021/22 Estimated Annual Average (days per employee)	Notes
People	2.17	5.93	7.35
Delivery	1.79	7.67	6.34
PPR	1.17	2.47	3.79
Resources	1.99	4.65	7.2
Chief Executive’s Office	1.23	2.3	5.37
Total staff sickness excluding maintained schools	1.89	5.67		6.48

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 risen in quarter 3 compared to quarter 2, particularly in Early Help & Communities and Mental Health and Out of Hours. 50% of the absence is attributable to long term sickness which is comparable to last quarter. Covid-19 represents 12% of the absence this quarter, significantly higher than last quarter.

Delivery

Sickness levels have increased slightly on last quarter particularly in Customer Experience, ICT & Digital Services. Long Term Sickness has increased to cover 50% of the full sickness within the department. Covid-19 related absences have reduced and now represents 9.2% of the absences this quarter.

Resources

Sickness levels in quarter 3 are similar to those from quarter 2. Long Term Sickness represents just over 50% of all sickness this quarter which is slightly lower than last quarter. Covid-19 represents 15.3% of the absence this quarter which is a significant reduction on quarter 2.

Place, Planning & Regeneration

Sickness absence levels for quarter 3 are very similar to those for quarter 2. Long Term Sickness represents 18.7% of the sickness this quarter which is a significant reduction on quarter 2. Covid-19 represents 17.2% of the total sickness this quarter which is significantly up on last quarter.

Chief Executive’s Office

As this is the first QSR for Chief Executives there are no comparison figures. Long Term Sickness represents 38% of the sickness for the quarter. Covid-19 represents 29% of the sickness for the quarter.

b) Summary of Complaints

Department	Type of complaint	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Total cumulative complaints	Outcome of all complaints received year to date
People: Adults	Statutory	12	14	11		37	5 – upheld/fully substantiated 16 – partially upheld/partially substantiated 10 – not upheld/not substantiated 2 – no finding 3 – in progress 1 – external investigation
People: Adults	Local Government Ombudsman	0	0	0		0
People: Childrens	Statutory stage 1	24	17	23		64	5 – upheld/fully substantiated 22 – partially upheld/partially substantiated 18 – not upheld/not substantiated 6 - no finding made 7 – in progress 5 – proceeded to stage 2
	Statutory stage 2	2	1	2		5	3 – in progress 2 – partially upheld
	Statutory stage 3	0	0	3		3	3 – in progress
	Stage 2	1	1	0		2	2 – not upheld
	Stage 3	0	2	0		2	2 – not upheld
	Local Government Ombudsman	0	0	0		0
People: Housing	Stage 2	2	2	1		5	5 – partially upheld
	Stage 3	0	0	0		0
	Local Government Ombudsman	0	0	0		0
CXO	Stage 2	0	0	0		0
	Stage 3	0	0	0		0
	Local Government Ombudsman	0	0	0		0
Resources	Stage 2	0	1	0		1	1 – Not upheld
	Stage 3	0	0	0		0
	Local Government Ombudsman	0	0	0		0
PPR	Stage 2	5	3	4		12	4 – in progress 4 – not upheld 4 – proceeded to stage 3
	Stage 3	1	3	0		4	1 – upheld 1 – not upheld 2 – in progress
	Local Government Ombudsman	0	0	0
Delivery	Stage 2	3	0	2		5	1 – in progress 3 – not upheld 1 – proceeded to stage 3
	Stage 3	0	0	1		0	1 – in progress
	Local Government Ombudsman	0	0	0		0

People: Adults

There were 11 complaints in quarter 3. Compared to this time last year, the figure is exactly that same.

People: Childrens

There were 23 complaints in quarter 3. Compared to this time last year, the figure is down from 26. This is 3 less.

Delivery

There was 1 complaint in quarter 3. Compared to this time last year, the figure is down from 3. This is 2 less.

Resources

There were no complaints in quarter 3. (QSR established this year).

Place, Planning & Regeneration

There were 4 complaints in quarter 3. (QSR established this year).

Chief Executive’s Office

There were no complaints in quarter 3. (QSR established this year).

c) Strategic Risks and Audits

During quarter 3 the Register was reviewed by the Strategic Risk Management Group on 4th November 2021. The risk scores were increased for the following risk:

· Staffing pressures;

· IT;

· Data protection; and

· Covid.

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

Department	Previous Figure*	For the last 4 quarters	Notes
People	17.95%	15.82%
Delivery	11.11%	11.54%
Resources	8.6%	6.59%
PPR	13.29%	15.09%
Chief Executive’s Office	13.51%	10.26%
Total Voluntary Turnover	15.26%	14.08%

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%

Section 1: Chief Executive’s Commentary

Section 2: Budget Position

Section 3: Strategic Themes

Value for money

Economic resilience

Education and skills

Caring for you and your family

Protecting and enhancing our environment

Section 4: Corporate Health

a) Summary of People

b) Summary of Complaints

c) Strategic Risks and Audits