Agenda item

The Leader presented the report which gave an overview on service areas’ performance for 2019/20 against each of the service plans 2018/22 (for 2019/20); acknowledged the successes delivered during the last financial year; and addressed any areas of under-performance across the service areas.

The Leader confirmed that in 2017 the authority launched the Council’s 5-year Corporate Plan which set out its vision and goals for delivering Council services and its Well-being objectives for the citizens of Newport.  The Leader also confirmed this is the third year of delivering against the objectives. 

The Leader asked Cabinet to note that the Council’s Annual Report 2019/20 will be presented to Cabinet in October which will provide an overview of the activities undertaken by the Council during the last financial year; the report will first go to Scrutiny for review.

The report confirmed that:

As reported in the last quarter (January to March 2020), the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in many service areas diverting their resources and activities towards ensuring essential frontline services were supported.  In addition the benchmarking of national performance measures were suspended.    

Additional reports will be presented to Cabinet outlining the work undertaken by the Council to date and the progress being made by service areas against the Strategic Recovery Aims at the mid-year reviews in the autumn.

The report provided an overview of progress made by each service area in 2019/20 against each of their objectives and highlighted further notable developments in the delivery of the Corporate Plan and how each service area had been impacted by Covid-19.

As outlined in the report, each service area reported that they are making good progress towards the delivery of their objectives with:

o          58% (171 / 297) of actions completed by the service areas;

o          25% (74 / 297) of actions ‘In Progress’ and will be carried forward into 2020/21 plans;

o          15% (44 / 297 actions) where issues have been identified which could impact on delivering the action within the timescale;

o          3% of actions (8 out of 297 actions) are off target.

The full detail of these developments are included in the report. The Leader highlighted some of the Council’s successes from last year:

o          Baby & Me service provided in collaboration between the Council’s Children’s Services and Barnardos which has received positive outcomes for service users involved and recognition across the UK and media outlets;

o          The Council received Multi-agency inspection of Child Protection Services completed in 2019/20 a relatively new approach but which has had very positive feedback in the way services are being run and areas to strengthen our existing arrangements;

o          NCC telecare service (Adult Services) is now fully operational and delivered in partnership with Monmouthshire County Council and Caerphilly County Borough Council.  This service utilises technology to enable people to continue to live independently at home;

o          Introduction of the Civil Parking Enforcement (City Services) which has seen improvements in road safety and improving the environment across Newport.

o          Implementation of new bins (City Services) resulted in a recycling rate improvement from 58% to 66.4% - exceeding the Council’s statutory target;

o          School attendance (Education) has improved. With primary school attendance ranked 6th out of 22 Welsh local authorities – an improvement of 7 places on the previous year.  Secondary school attendance ranked 7th out of 22 Welsh local authorities – an improvement of 9 places on the previous year;

o          Significant progress of the regeneration of Newport City Centre (Regeneration Investment & Housing) has been made in the construction of projects such as the Chartist Hotel, Market Arcade and the former IAC building, Mill Street;

o          Redevelopment of the Ringland Hub (Regeneration Investment & Housing) and introduction of the Neighbourhood Hubs that are providing different Council services in one building for the community;

o          The Council’s Regulatory Services continue to prevent and take action against those not complying with Trading Standards’ regulation and removing dangerous products and goods from the shelves; this service area has been outstanding in its response to covid-19 and the Leader thanked the officers for their sterling work.

o          The Digital team have supported the new way of working during Covid-19 lockdown through technology and IT support with the roll-out of Microsoft Teams in a short timeframe.

The report also highlighted the end of year performance measures that support the delivery of the Corporate Plan. 

The Leader commented how encouraging it is to see at the end of the year, 61 of the 111 (55%) corporate performance measures reported had either achieved or exceeded their target for the year.

There were some performance measures that had been reported as being short of meeting their target or as being ‘off target’ from their target figures and these are identified in the report.

Included in the report was a summary from the service areas explaining the reason(s) for the performance and actions being taken to improve performance for Amber and Red performance measures.  The report confirmed this information had also been provided to Scrutiny for information.

Under normal circumstances the end of year performance updates are also presented to the Place & Corporate and People Scrutiny Committees to review the progress and performance of the Council’s service areas against their objectives.  Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the Democratic process was suspended at the end of the financial year 2019/20; the reports were therefore provided to Scrutiny Committees for information.  The Leader confirmed that Committees will have an opportunity to review the progress being made against the 2020/21 service plans at the mid-year point in the late autumn.

The Leader also confirmed a further mid-year report will be presented where Cabinet will be provided with updates on service plan delivery which will provide a clearer picture of how Covid-19 has impacted objectives and performance.  Delivery of the 4 Strategic Recovery Aims is also reported in the September 2020 Cabinet report.

The Leader stated that the Cabinet, (both collectively and individually as Cabinet Members), have to acknowledge where service areas have achieved or exceeded their goals and the hard work that has been undertaken – particularly where Covid-19 has disrupted service delivery.  Likewise, it must also ensure that where the Council is not meeting targets set that these are closely monitored, supported and challenged with service areas to ensure that the necessary action(s) are taken to improve performance and recover from the impacts of Covid-19.

The Leader invited her cabinet colleagues to comment:

Cabinet members praised staff who continue to work effectively and efficiently across all service areas during this particularly challenging time.

The Leader invited the Chief Executive to speak who said that the reports on performance, risk and finance are all interwoven and thanked the Cabinet for their support.  She also gave personal thanks to the teams for their excellent work last year, focusing as a team on those areas that are challenging.  She confirmed that work continues on the MTFP for this year and next year and officers are also focusing on the forward capital programme. 

In summary the report asked Cabinet to:

•           Note the contents of the report;

•           Take action in conjunction with the Directors and Heads of Service to address areas of poor performance.

Decision:

Cabinet voted and unanimously agreed the report.