The Lead Member for HR, Legal & IT (includes Performance Management) introduced the 2018/19 Annual Performance Report.

Cabinet were informed that the council performance management framework had 25 key measures aligned to the strategic objectives in the Council Plan 2017-21.  Of the 25 measures reported performance at year end, 1 April 2018 - 31 March 2019, resulted in 16 measures meeting or exceeding target, 7 measures just short of target but within tolerance and 2 measures being below target.  The two measures had reported ‘Red’ were the percentage of children with a review at 2-2.5 years of age and the performance of the Tivoli contract.

The Chairman informed that the performance management framework was in a better position than before and he requested that the Lead Members for the two indicators that had not met their target to provide further detail. 

The Lead Member for Adults, Children and Health informed that the percentage of children with a review at 2-2.5 years of age was reported to the NHS by local authorities in a variety of ways.  The Royal Borough had taken a strict interpretation of the target and only included face to face contact whilst other authorities had included contact made in writing where a parent declined a visit.  It had been decided to keep the strict interpretation but add a secondary indicator reporting where parents had been contacted but declined a visit from the health visitor.   The Lead Member said that all vulnerable children had been visited and that the least deprived wards had a higher level of declines as parents felt the visit was not required.

The Lead Member for Culture, Communities and Windsor reported that the performance of the Tivoli contract had been a concern and mitigating actions had been taken.  Additional resources had recently been secured to improve poor performance in specific areas, however, sustained improvement across the contract was not being realised.

Increased performance management and monitoring had been put in place and issues had been escalated to Director level within Tivoli. Financial penalties had been applied and performance was due to be revived by scrutiny.  As the contract covered areas that where important to our residents officers had looked at alternative providers and Tivoli  had been given final notice to improve. 

The Chairman reported that the Council would terminate the contract if performance did not improve and meet expectations.  He expected performance to be improved by the time the performance report came back to Cabinet.  Tivoli would continue to receive financial penalties whilst performance was poor. 

The Lead Member for Planning highlighted the excellent performance for delayed transfers of care where nationally this was an issue for many authorities. 

Resolved unanimously:  that Cabinet notes the report and:

i)          Endorses the 2018/19 Annual Performance Report, summarised in Table 1 and Appendix A.

ii)         Requests relevant Lead Members, Directors and Heads of Service to maintain focus on improving performance.

iii)        Delegates authority to Executive Directors in conjunction with Lead Members to amend and confirm the Performance Management Framework for 2019/20.