Agenda and minutes

www.swansea.gov.uk/disclosuresofinterests

There were no disclosures of Personal and Prejudicial Interests.

None.

To receive the minutes of the previous meeting(s) and agree as an accurate record.

Minutes of the previous meeting were agreed.

Questions can be submitted in writing to Scrutiny scrutiny@swansea.gov.uk up until noon on the working day prior to the meeting. Written questions take precedence. Public may attend and ask questions in person if time allows. Questions must relate to items on the open part of the agenda and will be dealt with in a 10 minute period.

There were no public questions received.

Invited to attend:

Cllr Rob Stewart - Cabinet Member for Economy, Finance and Strategy

Cllr Andrea Lewis – Cabinet Member for Service Transformation

Richard Rowlands – Strategic Delivery & Performance Manager 

Cllrs Rob Stewart and Andrea Lewis attended. The following was discussed.

·       The new corporate plan was brought to Council on 30 March 2023.

·       Consultation survey responses were low however this is not necessarily reflective of the whole consultation approach that was taken.

·       The corporate plan is a high level lengthy document with certain legal requirements however work undertaken within available resources to produce different versions of the plan through different mediums for a variety of audiences is the likely solution.

·       There is list of potential measures for monitoring the plans progress. Data provided needs to be reportable, robust, consistent and collectible. Officers are aiming to bring the list of potential measures and any data already gathered to scrutiny in the Quarter 1 2023/24 Performance Monitoring Report.

·       Previously Welsh Government provided a national framework of public accountability measures which were useful and allowed for benchmarking across Wales, however these measures are no longer in use, officers have raised this with Audit Wales to feedback to Welsh Government.

·       The corporate plan will be renewed annually.

Invited to attend:

Cllr David Hopkins - Cabinet Member for Corporate Services & Performance

Richard Rowlands – Strategic Delivery & Performance Manager

Cllr Stewart and relevant officers reported on this item, the following was reported:

·       From 27 key performance indicators, 19 have improved or maintained, 1 has a decline within 5% and 7 show a decline of more than 5%.

·       6 new safeguarding indicators have been introduced based on the National Social Services Performance Framework.

·       The number of young people supported by the early help hubs had declined and this was in part due to the recent changes to the way information is recoded on the IT system.

·       Any changes to the Climate Change and Nature performance indicators are due to be introduced in the Quarter 1 2023/24 Performance Monitoring Report. The Strategic Delivery & Performance Manager noted that developing reliable indicators for this particular well-being objective was proving one of the most challenging. Any further information on these indicators will be brought back to the Panel in Q1.

·       Tackling poverty indicators show a decline in the speed of processing housing benefit and council tax reductions. Measures are in place to improve this including training new staff.

·       Praise was given to the welfare rights team for the amount of benefits secured through their work.

·       The Panel noted the lack of performance data on the Highways team, therefore would like more information on this at a future meeting explaining the process and criteria of road repairs. Highways were previously part of the Welsh Governments national measures before these were removed.

·       The introduction of the 48 hour pot hole pledge is under consideration for modification to allow time for more permanent fixtures. The patch repair programme is also under review.

·       An additional £5m has been earmarked for road repairs with an additional £500k being brought forward from the 2024/25 budget. No additional money for roads has been received from Welsh or National Government. Swansea Council has lobbied regarding this.

The Panel noted the work plan.