Agenda item

Council Plan Overview Report (CPOR) covering the second quarter of 2022/23 is attached.

Members of the Commission are asked to submit technical or detailed questions in advance of the meeting.

CPOR report Q2

The Chief Executive highlighted that the Council are looking to improve the clarity of their messages in terms of performance. Some changes have been made throughout the report to make it more engaging with narrative and visuals.  The aim was to make it easier to capture key messages using graphs to present and track trends.  There was also an additional section to include community health indicators which would provide a broader context set against the performance of other councils. 

It was noted that there have also been some changes to the website to ensure this information benefits the public when they try to find out the performance of their Local Authority.  Key highlights for Q2 were that children’s services achieved an outstanding Ofsted result.  The Council agreed the financial hardship action plan which took a strategic and sustainable cross-council approach in supporting residents to become more financially sustainable. 

Several community events have been facilitated, including the Royal funeral and support for Ukrainian arrivals. There have been some challenges including inflationary and general costs amongst all service areas.  Despite these challenges 81 % of actions are on track to support the council plan.

Arising from discussion the following points were raised:

·        A question was asked about the quarterly indicators on satisfaction with customer services.  This was down from 81% to 59.2% and concern was raised about reasons behind this or even an explanation of how it was measured.  The Chief Executive explained that this was as a result of a specific resourcing issue that was no longer a problem.

·        A query was raised regarding whether the KPI’s for SEND, which would be good indicators to highlight improvements, would be reported in the quarterly report.  This was asked because it was felt that for many concerned parents there was a need to show improvements are being made.  Further concern was raised that there was not a place in the report to display progress figures and simply stating that the assessment team have worked to reduce the number of out of time assessments and finalise a number of long outstanding cases did not address the issues.  It was felt that clear identification of how these are being managed was required.  The Chief Executive accepted that this was a challenge and that the key indicators would be revised, and these concerns addressed. 

·        Concern was raised that with the local elections on 4 May 2023 the Coronation of the King on 6 May 2023 would be overlooked.  It was confirmed that budget had been allocated to support the Coronation and in addition to this the Lexicon had a project underway to create the largest crown in Berkshire out of a mural of photos submitted by residents.  The council’s communications team were aligning and working together with the Lexicon on this event.

·        In response to a query about the strategy to deliver IT and whether this work in progress was on track the chief Executive confirmed that there were no issues escalated and would therefore be on target.