Agenda item

Purpose of the item: To provide an overview of Surrey County Council’s performance in the areas within the Select Committee’s remit

Witnesses:

Anna D’Alessandro, Director of Corporate Finance

Jackie Foglietta, Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development (HR&OD)

Susan Grizzelle, Head of Customer Services

Nicola Kilvington, Director of Insight, Analytics and Intelligence

Adrian Stockbridge, Head of Portfolios

Gary Strudwick, Head of Business Intelligence

Denise Turner-Stewart, Cabinet Member for Community Protection

Leigh Whitehouse, Executive Director of Resources

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    A Member noted that the indicator CUST 04 (Adult Social Care first time resolution rate), which was a new measure, had decreased in performance since its previous result and the most recent figure stood at only 37%. What did this indicator include, and had it been affected by Covid-19? The Head of Customer Services replied that this differed from the previous incarnation of CUST 04 (last presented to the Select Committee in December 2020), which had been a flat number rather than a percentage. Regarding the new indicator, the Council aimed for the result to be high but not too high, as some customers’ needs could be met quickly by general services, while others may need to have further contact with more specialised services if they required complex care. Customer services aimed to help the Adult Social Care (ASC) service to prioritise complex cases, thereby giving customers more targeted assistance, as well as helping customers to navigate the complicated system of ASC. The Member remarked that this explanation could be made clearer in the report.

2.    A Member asked whether indicator HROD 06 (off payroll spend as percentage of total staffing spend (excluding schools)) included costs such as holiday and sickness pay. The Director of HR&OD responded that these costs were indeed included within this indicator. There were two different types of temporary staff employed by the Council: temporary agency staff were slightly more expensive to employ than equivalent permanent staff, but they did not incur holiday pay until they had worked for the Council for over three months; the other type employed was consultants, who tended to be significantly more expensive than permanent staff. The HR service was trying to encourage a reduction in the use of consultants across the Council and was considering reducing the 10% target for this indicator; key performance indicators such as this were regularly reviewed by Executive Directors. Three-quarters of off-payroll workers were temporary agency staff, and these agency staff mainly worked in legal, property, safeguarding and ASC services (regarding the latter, agency staff were needed as it was difficult to ensure there were enough care home staff). The Director alerted the Select Committee that next time they received the latest data on this indicator, the spend might have increased, as another 130 agency workers had been employed to work on Covid-19 test sites. It was important to note that there would always be a need for some off-payroll staff.

3.    Following on from the previous point, a Member enquired what was being done to overcome the use of temporary staff in areas where specialist, temporary staffing was not necessarily needed, such as in legal or property services. The Director of HR&OD stated that legal had required the use of locums, but this was now being reduced. Property needed to use interim resource pending recruitment to new roles developed through its transformation programme. A significant amount of work had been done on reducing unnecessary reliance on temporary workers; there was a reduced reliance on agency workers in children’s social work, for example. A retention payment that was introduced in this area produced significant results, and now that learning needed to be taken into ASC. Members were pleased to hear about the progress made in children’s social care and the idea of promulgating this progress throughout the Council.

4.    A Member asked what the reasons for and consequences of not meeting the efficiency target of the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) general fund reserve in 2020/21 were. The Director of Corporate Finance stated that there was currently a circa £10m overspend on the high needs block, due to an increase in volumes and costs. This overspend was on top of the planned overspend of £24m that had already been factored into the budget. There was a transformation programme for SEND that would be worked through taking the overspend into account.

5.    A Member enquired what efficiencies in learning disabilities and autism (LD&A) had been overachieved. The Director of Corporate Finance responded that the LD&A transformation programme had been delivering well. The overachievement related to increased funding received from the NHS for care packages, reflecting successful outcomes; lower than budgeted expenditure on a range of services including day-care and respite, much of which had been driven by Covid-19; and a higher number of deaths than previous years, due to Covid-19.

6.    A Member remarked that the report showed that the transformation programme had only spent £9.6m of overall planned financial costs, compared to the full-year target of £22.5m. What was the year-end forecast for this and the potential impact of the underspend on the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years? The Head of Portfolios explained that the latest forecast spend for the 2020/21 year-end was £14.4m, entailing a circa £8m underspend on the target. This underspend was predominantly related to Covid-19. Of the circa £8m, approximately half of this would be carried forward to 2021/22. The remaining £4m would be available for repurposing and Cabinet would determine the use of this in April 2021.

7.    The Head of Business Intelligence thanked all the witnesses involved for their help and support and stated that a period of review would be conducted in preparation for the start of the 2021/22 financial year, including the possibility of incorporating equality, diversity and inclusion indicators in the report, and ensuring the report complied with accessibility guidelines.