Annex E

St. Helens Council Performance Outturn Report 2015/16

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Annex E - Overview of Performance 2015-16 The Council continues to recognise the importance of closely monitoring and reporting performance. Ensuring a strong link between budgets, service delivery and performance targets is critical to the achievement of our desired outcomes both for the organisation and wider community, particularly given the scale of government cuts and the impact on the availability of resources. The Council adopts a tiered approach to the reporting of performance indicators:

Tier 1 PIs: – A proportionate set of high-level strategic indicators agreed along with the Council’s key objectives and contained within the Council’s Delivery Plan.

Tier 2 PIs: - A larger but still proportionate set of indicators necessary for the effective monitoring of performance at portfolio/departmental level. The indicators will be pertinent to the budget setting process covering key service areas and of interest to the wider Member audience. The table below provides a portfolio analysis of the performance of all Tier 1 and Tier 2 indicators at outturn 2015-16. Overall of the 139 indicators for which outturn data is available and targets were set, 72 (52%) were on or better than target at outturn 2015-16. This is less than the previous year’s outturn where 56% of indicators were on or better than target. Overall performance should be seen within the context of the Council still continuing to set ambitious and in some cases aspirational performance targets along with a background of significant budget reductions. There are areas of strong performance across the portfolios, but also areas in which improvement is still being sought. There was 1 indicator where outturn data was not available in the Transport, Housing and Community Safety Portfolio, due to the removal of a data source by Merseyside Police. The indicator has been excluded from the calculation of the percentage of PIs better than target and those showing improvement. Of the 131 performance indicators where it was possible to measure improvement, 67 or 51% were showing improvement or the same level of performance compared to 2014-15.

All Tier 1 and Tier 2 PIs Outturn 2015-16

Portfolios

No. of PIs

On or better than

target

% on or better than

target

Worse than

target

Data gaps

% of PIs showing Improvement

Adult Social Care & Health 22 12 55% 10 0 55% Children, Families & Young People 21 10 48% 11 0 40%

Corporate Services 3 1 33% 2 0 33%

Education & Lifelong Learning 17 6 35% 11 0 53%

Employment, Planning & Growth 12 6 50% 6 0 67%

Green, Smart & Sustainable 10 5 50% 5 0 44%

Public Health & Well-Being 26 14 54% 12 0 38% Transport, Housing & Community Safety 28 18 67% 9 1 63%

TOTAL 139 72 52% 66 1 51%

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A narrative summary by portfolio of the key messages stemming from the Council’s outturn performance for 2015-16, detail of individual indicators and service delivery issues follows.

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Adult Social Care and Health Portfolio

Service Delivery Summary

• Adult Social Care, in a challenging financial climate, effectively provided personalised care and support services to over 9,000 of the Borough’s most vulnerable people.

• Phase 1 of the Care Act continued to be delivered effectively. The national Care Act stock-takes over the year showed that performance in St. Helens compared well with both neighbour and comparator authorities in respect of safeguarding, assessments, eligibility, support for carers, advocacy and a robust understanding of the cost of care. Which? Magazine positively identified St. Helens as one of the best performing councils in the country in terms of information for carers.

• St. Helens Better Care Fund Plan was identified as clear and ambitious by NHS England. Six out of the eight national conditions of the Better Care Fund Plan are being met in St Helens. The delivery of 7 day services is steadily being implemented across social care and health. The Integrated Access St. Helens (IASH) community staff are working 7 days per week. A pilot is underway where social care assessors are based in A&E 7days a week. The introduction of Application Program Interfaces, the remaining condition to ensure better sharing of information, is still ‘in progress.’

• The Integrated Commissioning Team continued to review third sector service contracts across all funding streams to ensure that they are delivering quality provision and value for money.

• Service reviews were undertaken to improve performance and efficiency within Intermediate Care and Community Nursing, Adult Transport Service, Autism Provision, and the St. Helens Advocacy and Information Resource (SHAIR) service. This is part of a cycle of continuous improvement.

• The Intermediate Care and Community Nursing reviews identified areas of good practice and areas where the Council and St. Helens CCG can work more closely to reduce duplication of effort and improve outcomes for service users. Work continued to develop and implement a revised strategy and action plan.

• Restructure of the Transport Service following review, will enable the service to be more efficient and effective and to continue to provide a service to people leaving hospital, seven days a week. The Transport Service is based at Brookfield Support Centre.

• The Reablement Service continued to support clients on discharge, both after a hospital stay or following a visit to A&E. Working in collaboration with the Integrated Discharge Team and the Integrated Access St. Helens (IASH) A&E service, Reablement are able to respond quickly to work with service users who may have a reduced level of independence following an illness or accident. Satisfaction with the Reablement Service is high at 88.5%. The service received a Care Quality Commission inspection rating of ‘Good’ in all areas and was judged to be safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

• At an NHS Benchmarking Event held in October 2015 on Integration and Better Care Fund Findings, IASH was presented as good practice. IASH also received a visit from the Head of Delivery at NHS England, providing an opportunity to highlight integrated working and the benefits the service provides for service users.

• The Over 65’s Falls Prevention Service contract has been extended for 2 years.

• There was a continued focus on the use of assistive technology in care settings such as supported living and care homes. A Liverpool City Region project group was

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awarded £25,000 by NHS Innovation Service to pilot an electronic application (app) that can support service users to maintain and improve their physical, social and mental wellbeing. The 12 month pilot project started in March 2016 in St Helens.

• A total of 1,056 (Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard (DoLS) assessments were completed by the team in 2015/16, compared to 528 in 2014/15. The impact of the increased activity has been recognised nationally and the Law Commission is due to publish the results of a consultation examining the processes and timescales for DoLS assessments.

• The findings of a Peer Review of Safeguarding within St. Helens were very positive, acknowledging clear policies and procedures, statutory responsibilities being met and a mature partnership with strong relationships.

• A 12 month pilot project commenced with St Helens Carers Centre, whereby the Centre will conduct Carers Assessments on behalf of the Local Authority. The effectiveness of the service is being closely monitored.

Performance Indicator Outturn Summary Indicators achieving target include:

• Overall, 68% of service users indicated they are satisfied with the services they receive (Adult Social Care Survey 2015), which is an improvement on last year. The quality of life score also showed improvement, increasing slightly from 19.4 to 19.6 out of 24 this year. A new ASCOF indicator taken from the Adult Social Care Survey measuring the proportion of people who feel they have as much social contact as they like also performed strongly, at 49%, compared to 46.4% last year. 94% of respondents to the survey stated that they felt safe inside and outside the home. The Council’s performance across these Social Care Survey PIs continues to compare strongly with average performance across the NW and England.

• The overall satisfaction of Carers with Social Services as reported in the 2015 Carers Survey, indicates that 84% of Carers are satisfied with the services and support received. This is a marked improvement on the previous survey in 2013 (70%) and considerably better than target (72%). The survey also highlighted that 79% of Carers identified that they find it easy or fairly easy to find information about support, compared to 76.6% in 2013. The Council’s performance continues to compare strongly with average performance across the NW and England.

• Over 20% of service users are receiving a direct payment as a proportion of those receiving community based services. Performance is slightly below the North West (22.8%) and England (26.3%) averages (in 2014/15).

• At year-end, 523 out of 554 (or 94.4%) adults (18-69 years) with learning disabilities, were in settled accommodation. This is better than last year’s performance of 89.6% and better than regional and national averages. Work continues to understand the reasons why people are not in settled accommodation.

• The indicators covering all delayed transfers of care from hospital and those which are directly attributable to Adult Social Care met target Performance for both indicators was very positive, reflecting the ongoing impact of the Integrated Discharge Team at Whiston Hospital and the Integrated Access St. Helens initiative.

• 3 of the 4 local safeguarding measures met target at outturn 2015/16. Performance is better than for the same period the previous year for each measure. This strong performance highlights the proactive approach taken by the care management teams in responding to, investigating and closing safeguarding alerts promptly.

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Indicators not meeting target include:

• The percentage of people receiving social care and support services stating that they have enough control over their daily lives in the 2015 Adult Social Care Survey was 79%. Outturn performance is worse than the previous year (82%), but is strong compared to the England and North West average of 77%.

• The 2015 Adult Social Care Survey measures the proportion of people receiving social care and support services who feel safe inside or outside the home. The ASCOF indicator measures those who state they feel ‘as safe as they want’. St Helens performance was 69%, which is comparable with the England average of 68.5% and North West average of 70%. Our local indicator extends the definition to also include those who state they feel ‘adequately safe’. Performance at outturn 2015/16 was 93.8%, narrowly missing target and a drop in performance compared to the previous year (96.3%).

• The quality of life score reported in the Carers Survey 2015 was 8.3. This is a composite measure relating to 6 questions in the survey with a maximum score of 12 available. Although performance is worse than the previous survey result (8.7), it is better than the North West and national averages of 7.9 and 8.0 respectively.

• The proportion of carers who reported they had been included in discussions about the person they care for, as recorded in the Carers Survey 2015, was 77.2%. This is a decrease compared to the 2013 survey result of 81.4%. However, performance is good compared to the North West (71.6%) and national (72.3%) averages. The Carers Survey is completed every two years.

• At outturn 2015/16, 91.4% of service users had received self-directed support as a percentage of those accessing long-term support. Performance is not quite as good as that for the same period last year. However, performance is strong when compared to the latest regional (78.7%) and national (83.7%) averages for the period 2014/15.

• A total of 36 (or 6.5%) people with learning disabilities aged 16-64, out of 554 clients known to Learning Disability Services, were in employment in the year. Performance compares well to regional (4.2%) and national (6.0%) averages. Supported Employment, part of New Ventures, continues to work with a wide range of partners to increase numbers of people with a learning disability in both voluntary and paid employment.

• Admissions to permanent residential or nursing care for people aged 18-64 and those aged 65 and over did not meet target. The 2015/16 outturn was not as good as the strong performance recorded for the same period last year. Care Management works closely with service users and families to explore all appropriate community options before a decision is taken to admit to a residential or nursing home on a permanent basis. The numbers of permanent admissions to residential or nursing care is very closely monitored.

• The percentage of older people who remained at home 91 days after discharge from hospital having received a Reablement Service is 91%. Performance has improved compared to last year and is better than the latest available regional (82.9%) and national (82.1%) averages (in 2014/15).

• There were a total of 77 safeguarding enquiries in 2015/16 that progressed to a strategy meeting. Of this number, 55 (or 71.5%) were closed within 90 days. Performance has improved compared to last year (65%). It should be noted that the majority of closures outside of timescale for this indicator are as a result of criminal or disciplinary investigations and therefore not directly under the control of the Council. A proactive approach continues to be taken in all Care Management Teams by

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managers to emphasise the importance of closing alerts promptly and the timely closure of cases continues to be closely monitored and the improvement in performance evidences this approach has been beneficial. No comparative data available as this is a local performance indicator.

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Children, Families and Young People & Education and Lifelong Learning Portfolio

Service Delivery Summary

• Following the creation of a People’s Services Department and in prompt response to a number of issues identified in children’s services, a new departmental structure was agreed and implemented in March 2016, along with a methodology to demonstrate assurance and effectiveness.

• A Peer Review of children’s services performance identified a number of positive points. In schools and education it was noted the appointment of a Virtual Head Teacher and the focus on supporting vulnerable groups is strong, along with a ‘family’ of schools who are willing to work together to improve performance for pupils. In social care it was noted that there is a strong foundation to build on, but there are particular issues around high volumes in areas of referrals, child protection and children looked after. A number of recommendations for improvement were made which have subsequently been fed into a number of action plans.

• The improvement plans for Children’s Social Care and the LSCB required by Ofsted following their inspection in 2014, were produced and approved on 1st April 2015. Work was ongoing over the course of the year to deliver the actions, with areas of progress made.

• A series of multi-agency workshops informed the development of the Early Help Strategy, a revised Early Help Assessment Tool and the creation of a single point of access for Early Help Referrals. Action has resulted in increased early help activity and it is hoped that in time this is reflected in reduced numbers of children in need and children looked after.

• A Partnership Coordinator was appointed to support partner agencies in identifying and responding robustly to cases of children showing early signs of vulnerability to try to arrest the need for escalation to social care.

• Other areas of the Ofsted Improvement Plan are ongoing with outstanding actions scheduled for completion early within 2016/17. A further review of the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub began in March 2016 to address concerns that have persisted around the volume of contracts, referrals and re-referrals. Completion of the domestic abuse work-stream will support the department’s ability to respond more effectively to the needs of children affected by domestic violence and to address other relevant factors such as substance misuse and mental illness. Further work to ensure that the voice of the child is heard across all services, particularly at a strategic level remains a priority within the new department and future quality assurance and audit activity will provide additional focus to this area of practice.

• The completion of improvement activity around the WWiSH shared adoption services has resulted in improved practice and a significant increase in the number of adoptions within St. Helens which rose from 30 in 2014/15 to 50 in 2015/16. A successful regionalisation of adoption bid will see the expansion of WWiSH to include Halton, Cheshire West and Chester and the 2 voluntary adoption agencies.

• A review of the Foster Care service was undertaken by an ex HM Inspector. A draft plan has been developed and work is now underway to implement the actions.

• The School Effectiveness Strategy 2015/18 was approved in November 2015, setting out a focussed approach to school improvement. A School Improvement Consultant has been appointed by the Council and will continue to work with our secondary

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schools to provide challenge and support on issues relating to leadership and management, and teaching and learning.

• St.Helens Council was selected by the Department for Education (DfE) as a Champion for Best Practice in the use of the Eligibility Checking Service for administering 2-Year Old Free Early Education Entitlement. The DfE confirmed that take up of entitlement has increased markedly and at January 2016 stood at 75% of all eligible children.

• The Schools Admissions team performed strongly ensuring the application process was clear, transparent and well administered. The 2014 allocations data published by the DfE showed that St.Helens Council had the second lowest proportion of upheld appeals in Secondary schools and the third lowest proportion of upheld appeals in Primary schools. Performance at both Secondary and Primary level was significantly better than NW averages.

• The 2015 Short Quality Screening Inspection of Youth Offending Services showed many positives, judging the quality of work with children and young people as good with improvements since the previous inspection. A dedicated multi-agency reoffending group was established to address the concerns about reoffending rates for children and young people supervised by St Helens YOS.

• St. Helens was one of 6 areas chosen to participate in the national Delivering Differently for Young People programme and was allocated £35,000 from the Cabinet Office. The funding will support a strategic review of how the Council delivers youth, cultural and leisure services for children and young people.

Performance Indicator Outturn Summary

Indicators achieving target include:

Children, Families and Young People Portfolio:

• 64% of children in reception classes in St. Helens reached a ‘Good’ level of development at the end of the 2014/15 academic year as assessed under the Early Learning Goals, a 2% improvement on the previous year. Performance is above the NW average and that of statistical neighbours, but below the national average of 66%.

• The Single Assessment process for children’s social care continued to function effectively in relation to assessments completed within timescale, with 92% completed. Performance remains strong when compared to the most recent (2014/15) regional (82%) and national (82%) averages.

• 50 children were adopted during the year, compared to 30 children in the previous

year. The time between entering care and being placed for adoption is 619 days, which meets the local target but is some distance from the national scorecard target of 426 days. The time between receiving court authority to place a child and matching with an adoptive family is 312 days, which also meets the local target (480 days) but does not meet the national requirement of 121 days. Practice has changed significantly in the Adoption Team in the last 2 years, and the introduction of an Early Permanence model has strengthened the commitment to meeting national targets.

• The indicator measuring the percentage of professional assessments for children and young people with special educational needs or disability completed within the 6 week timescale met target at 66%. As this was the first year of a new process of

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combined assessments from education, health and social care professionals, it is anticipated that performance will increase significantly in 2016/17, with the provision of additional resources.

• The number of re-referrals to children’s social care within 12 months of the initial referral fell significantly by 7%, bringing St. Helens performance broadly in line with comparable national average performance.

• The indicator measuring the percentage of looked after children receiving a health assessment in the previous 12 months met target. The provisional figure of 90% is in line with national average performance, but expected to improve further once final assessments have been collated.

• The target for the percentage of children with a Personal Education Plan (PEP) in place where a review of the plan had taken place in the previous 6 months was met, with 92% of children’s PEPs completed and reviewed. The quality of the PEPS has been closely monitored and quality assured, with the overwhelming majority of documents judged to be good.

Education and Lifelong Learning Portfolio:

• Standards within school as judged by Ofsted have shown strong improvement during 2015/16. 100% of special schools and 67% of secondary schools are now judged to be ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, following a number of very positive Ofsted reports. Commissioned school improvement work and the School Improvement Board continue to provide challenge and support to schools to further raise standards.

• Strong overall performance continues in primary schools at Key Stage 2. 83% of pupils achieved at least level 4 at Key Stage 2 in Reading, Writing and Maths, which exceeded target (82%) and is above regional and national averages (80%).

• The persistent absence rate for secondary pupils met target, but the validated outturn of 6% remained higher than comparable regional (5.6%) and national (5.4%) averages.

• The attainment levels of looked after children achieving at least 5 A*-C GCSEs or equivalent met target and were above comparable regional and national averages. The Virtual Head Teacher will continue to work to support and develop improvements in the educational attainment performance of looked after children.

• The number of first-time entrants (FTEs) to the youth justice system continued to show strong improvement with a further fall. The 50 FTEs recorded in 2015/16 represents a significant reduction on the baseline figure of 112 in 2009/10, when the national measure was first established.

• The Youth and Play service exceeded its revised attendance targets with over 29,000 attendances over the course of 2015/16.

Indicators not achieving target include:

Children, Families and Young People Portfolio:

• The number of children in need has remained high and the rate increased in 2015/16 from the previous year. As at the 31st March 2016, there were 1,832 children in need which includes; children in care, children on a child protection plan, care leavers and children currently being assessed to determine if support is required. Work is underway with partner agencies to develop more effective early help support at level 2 of the continuum of need and this in the longer term will reduce children in need numbers.

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• Numbers of looked after children remained high. As of year-end 2015/16 there were

there were 410 looked after children in St Helens. The rate was broadly in line with the previous year. Rates still remain comparatively very high. Pro-active work continues to safely reduce the number of looked after children by ensuring that adoptions, discharge of care orders at home and Special Guardianship Orders are completed within agreed timescales.

• 42 or 10.2% of the 410 looked after children had 3 or more placement moves during the year, an increase on the 7% recorded in the previous year. Outturn is in line with the latest available national average of 10% of children in care experiencing 3 or more placement moves in a year. A small number of teenage looked after children placements broke down, resulting in additional moves in residential settings. The Commissioning team are working closely with Social Work teams to ensure the most appropriate placements are secured.

• At year end, 51.3% or 40 former care leavers aged 17-21 were in employment, education or training. Regional comparisons are not yet available and the indicator is not directly comparable to the previous year’s performance due to a change in the methodology. Improvement in this area remains a priority and the Corporate Parenting Forum will drive action, particularly in relation to pre-employment support and apprenticeships.

• During 2015/16, 75% of Education Health and Care (EHC) plans for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities were completed within the 20 week timescale, lower than the target of 80%. The most recently published data for 2015 shows the national average to be 62% of plans completed within timescale. The transfer of existing Special Educational Needs (SEN) Statements to the new Education Health and Care plans also failed to meet target, with only 18% of planned transfers completed. The SEN team are committed to increasing performance and as the recent reforms have increased the demands placed on the team, capacity has been increased in the team and plans are afoot to further increase capacity.

• Over the year a total of 13 families within the Priority Families programme achieved significant and sustained progress. The outturn was well below the expected target and demonstrates how the Priority Families Outcomes Framework has become more stringent. Performance was in line with the regional performance rate and neighbouring authorities. The delivery structure that is in place should see a steady increase in performance in 2016/17 to achieve positive outcomes for some of the Borough’s most complex and challenging families.

• During 2015/16, 11 custodial sentences (10%) were issued to young people out of a potential 114 court disposal (i.e. sentences). In the previous year, out of a total of 154 court sentences, 5 were custodial (3.25%). The latest comparative data issued by the Youth Justice Board for the calendar year 2015 shows that St. Helens performance for this indicator is better than the NW and Merseyside averages and comparable to the England average. The indicator is closely linked to the issue of re-offending as the youth re-offending indicator also failed to meet target with 50% of all children who received a sentence going on to re-offend. The Youth Offending Service (YOS) Partnership Board recognise this area as the greatest performance challenge, one requiring the support of all partners. A multi-agency reducing reoffending sub-group has been established by the YOS Partnership Board and the group is currently under review to ensure its future effectiveness in reducing reoffending.

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Education and Lifelong Learning Portfolio:

• At Secondary School level, validated outturn data for academic year 2014/15 shows that 54.7% of pupils achieved 5 A*-C GCSEs or equivalent including English and Maths. The outturn is below the previous year’s performance of 55.2%, the target of 55.6% and the comparable average achieved by all state funded schools (57.3%) nationally. There were however some impressive performances at several local schools, A commissioned school improvement consultant continues to work with schools to provide challenge and support in order to improve attainment results.

• The final validated outturn performance for academic year 2014/15 for the percentage of young people achieving Level 3 by age 19 was 53%, which has not met target (54%). Performance is unchanged from the previous academic year 2013/14 and remains below the national average of 57.4%. The gap in attainment of Level 3 at age 19 between those young people who were in receipt of free school meals at academic age 15 and those who were not, failed to meet the target of 29% and now stands at 32%. The attainment gap remains wider than the North West (29%) and England (25%) averages. Recommendations and key actions are being developed to share with key post-16 providers to improve performance for both measures, following circulation of a report to Head Teachers and key partners in April 2016.

• The validated achievement gap between SEN pupils who achieved 5+ GCSEs or equivalent at grades A*-C, including English and Maths at Key Stage 4 and their peers in the 2014/15 academic year was 44.5%. This is broadly in line with the performance of the previous year and the national average, but below the target of 44%. The profile of vulnerable groups will continue to be raised with schools to ensure that the needs of pupils are met and the performance gap narrowed.

• The validated achievement gap between pupils eligible for free school meals achieving at least 5A*-C grades at GCSE and equivalent including English and Maths at Key Stage 4.and their peers in the 2014/15 academic year was 32.8%. This represents a widening of the gap from the previous year’s outturn of 26.8%. The challenging target of 25% was not achieved. Nationally the comparable gap was 28%. School improvement advisors continue to work with schools to provide challenge over the performance of under-achieving groups of pupils.

• The validated outturn for the percentage of pupils making 3 levels of progress between KS2 and KS4 in English for the academic year 2014/15 was 64.8%. This is a decrease on performance in the previous year and below the comparable regional (69.1%) and national averages (71.3).

• The validated outturn for the percentage of pupils making 3 levels of progress between KS2 and KS4 in Maths for the academic year 2014/15 was 60.7%, which is better than the previous year’s performance (59.4%), but below the target of 63%. Performance remains below the comparable regional (63.5%) and national averages (66.9%).

• The final validated data for academic year 2014/15 shows that the attainment gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and their peers in achieving at least level 4 in Reading, Writing and Maths at Key Stage 2 has widened to 20%, compared to 12% at the end of academic year 2013/14. School improvement advisors will continue to challenge schools over the performance of underachieving pupils and schools will be required to demonstrate how they are using Pupil Premium funding to raise standards and close the attainment gap

• At the end of March 2016, 48 primary schools have been judged by Ofsted at their most recent inspection to be ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, which represents 89% of all state

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funded primary schools in St Helens. This is marginally below the target of 90%. The most recent school to be inspected was Wargrave CE primary school in March 2016 and was judged as ‘requires improvement’. School improvement advisors will provide a tailored support programme and termly reviews for the school based on Ofsted findings.

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Strategy, Governance & External Affairs, and Corporate Services Portfolios

Service Delivery Summary Over the course of the year, the 2 Portfolios continued to perform all expected service functions, whilst delivering improvements and efficiencies across a number of areas. There were no issues of concern to report. The following represent some of the key aspects of service delivery.

• The Council worked with the other Liverpool City Region authorities and Central Government to secure a devolution agreement to provide greater control and decision making powers on the issues of economic development, transport and skills.

• Following a report ‘Transitioning the Council towards 2020’, by the Chief Executive to Council, agreement was reached to restructure the Council functions into 3 departments; People’s Services, Environmental and Trading Services and Corporate Services. The report also provided agreement to establish a transition team to support the achievement of a 2020 Vision for the Council and to develop a revised operating model.

• The Chief Executive delivered a number of 2020 Vision briefing sessions to inform and discuss with staff, approaches the Council will need to take to manage further budget reductions and maintain a sustainable organisation. As well as the Managers Networks, a further 5 sessions were held and attended by over 640 staff.

• A CIPFA compliant Statement of Accounts for St.Helens Council for the period ended 31 March 2015 was prepared, and the subsequent independent audit of the Statements was successfully completed. In compliance with legislative requirements, Members were presented with the Audit Report at the meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee on the 21st of September 2015. The Council’s external auditors Grant Thornton provided an unqualified opinion on the financial statements. As in previous years, no significant issues were raised and it was concluded that the accounts were prepared to a high standard.

• Grant Thornton also provided an unqualified opinion on their Value for Money conclusion, stating that the Council has delivered significant savings by pursuing vigorous efficiencies and improved productivity.

• The final Revenue and Capital Budget Report 2015/16 was presented to and agreed by Cabinet on the 24th February and Council on the 2nd March 2016. Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB) Reviews across all Portfolios along with a complimentary forward planning exercise to determine the future role and function of the Council by 2020 informed the development of the Portfolio spending plans. The report was informed by final confirmation of the Local Government Finance Settlement 2016/17, which affirmed an overall grant reduction of £8.9 million for 2016/17 and a further £15.9 million for the following 3-years.

• Promotion of the Council’s on-line Budget Simulator ‘YouChoose’ continued to allow the opportunity for people to express their views on the allocation of the Council’s future finances. The findings of the exercise were taken account of when preparing the final budget report.

• The Council’s key planning document was reviewed and refreshed. A proposed revised planning structure, encompassing a Borough Visioning Plan and Council Operational Plan linked to the 2020 vision, supported by a delivery plan was agreed following a report to the Strategic Directors. A one year Council Delivery Plan, was approved by Cabinet and Council as part of the Budget Report in February 2016.

• The annual performance indicator review and target setting exercise was completed and agreed by Cabinet in March 2016. The process was supported by a performance

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benchmarking exercise to ensure the targets set were challenging, but realistic and commensurate with the available level of resource.

• The Council’s new Performance Indicator system was completed and released on 30thJune offering a number of efficiencies and benefits to the user, including enhanced reporting features.

• Following the release of the Indices of Multiple Deprivation 2015 in September, a report of the key findings for St. Helens was produced and circulated to senior staff and Members.

• During 2015/16 Scrutiny Panels undertook reviews on the following topic areas:

Support for Foster Carers Apprenticeships Homelessness and Rough Sleepers Hate Crime Dementia Friendly Borough GP Processes and Practices Older People and Loneliness Corporate Complaints Health Scrutiny has also undertaken work with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) attending Health Summits for St Helens and Whiston Hospital and 5 Boroughs NHS Foundation Trust. The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA)has seen an extended role for scrutiny. The Scrutiny Team support Members elected to achieve greater public accountability over decisions made and services delivered to the whole Liverpool City Region. The LCRCA Scrutiny Committee has completed a number of pieces of review work, namely: European Funding, Affordable Transport and Housing and Planning.

• A revised Corporate Risk Register System was developed. A series of training sessions were held and the corporate risks reviewed and recorded on the new system.

• A refreshed Business Continuity Management Database aligning the Council to the ISO 22301 framework was achieved. The framework continues to deliver further improvements throughout its 6 monthly review periods embedding Business Continuity throughout the Council.

• The Major Emergency Plan 2015 was refreshed detailing further enhancements such as the adoption of the JESIP (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles), developing shared situational awareness with the Emergency Services and Partner agencies. Humanitarian assistance to compliment emergency feeding provisions for the Council has been streamlined to utilise 24/hour local arrangements.

• A major emergency planning and recovery exercise, simulating a major emergency, took place on 15th December. The 3 site multi-agency exercise involved more than 130 participants. The exercise was very positive, with much learning gained, which was subsequently fed into the Merseyside Recovering from Emergency Plan.

• The Council was successfully reaccredited with Investors in People (IIP) ‘Gold’ status, performing very strongly and meeting 190 out of a total of 196 evidence requirements. A small action plan was drawn up to address those areas deemed to require further development.

• On 7th October 2015, the Cabinet considered and approved a report entitled “Towards the Living Wage Phase 2 – Further Restructure of the Council’s Pay Spine”, which agreed to remove the bottom spinal column point of the Council’s current pay spine (i.e. SCP 7) and approved changes to Band A and Band B of our

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pay scale. The HR Service prepared the implementation of this change, which involved the issue of more than 2,300 contractual change notifications, introduction of new pay rates in December 2015, and payment of any related back pay in January 2016.

• The new and improved Council website neared completion, with work ongoing to facilitate a June 2016 launch. The new site has a less is more approach, and encompasses resident, council, business and self-service portals. The site will also contain a new e-citizen module, which allows residents to register with the Council in order to have a personalised view of certain services.

• Recent customer service improvements include the Council Tax and Housing Benefits Customer Service portal going live in January and the new payments kiosk now being operational in the Contact Centre reception in Wesley House.

• IT along with a number of other Corporate and Departmental Services are working with O2 and local partners on a Digital Town Centre Project. An initial workshop was organised in July to scope the project, which aims to demonstrate that there are measurable benefits to be had from the further implementation of digital technology and support services for local retail businesses.

• Work continued on the Digital Champion initiative with partners asked to sign up to a Digital Strategy for St. Helens and a number of initiatives are now underway. Work was undertaken with members of St. Helens University of the Third Age Group on mobile device awareness sessions, which proved very popular. Work on the development of a digital strategy for St. Helens commenced to support the Digital Champion initiative.

• Business IT achieved accreditation to the ISO 27001 Information Security Management System standard.

• The new procurement system went live in September 2015, which has better search criteria and attachments to buyers and suppliers. The platform has been developed to work on the Councils new mobile devices.

• A new Surveyors App for Responsive Repairs has been developed, which is available on and off-line and is fully integrated to back end systems. The App allows surveyors to have new jobs assigned and respond accordingly sending back all details whilst out in the field.

Performance Indicator Outturn Summary

Indicators meeting target include:

• The average number of days lost to sickness absence per employee during 2015/16 was 7.3, which is an improvement on the previous year’s outturn of 7.72 days. The indicator has shown a historic downward trend since 2005/06, when the average sickness absence level was around 10 days. The Council’s performance remains good in this area. 2015/16 comparative data is not yet available however, the average number of days lost to sickness for all Unitary, Metropolitan and County Council’s across the North West in 2014/15 was 9.21 days. In this year St.Helens Council was the 4th best performing council out of 17 across the North West.

Indicators not meeting target include:

• The percentage of Council Tax collected for the financial year 2015/16 was 0.3% below target and 0.1% lower than the previous year’s outturn. This is due to lesser numbers of Council Tax Reduction scheme cases, the awarding of less support,

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leading to a corresponding increase in overall debt raised. Comparative data is not yet available for 2015/16, however historically Council performance has been strong in relation to peers. The focus remains to collect the Council Tax within a timely manner during 2016/17.

• The percentage of non-domestic rate collected at 95.8% during 2015/16 was 1.2% below target and the previous year’s outturn. The reduction in performance is due to a small number of higher value accounts that were not collected in-year due to changes in occupiers and recovery will continue into the new year. In addition the difficult economic conditions continue with resulting cases of insolvencies. It has been identified why the target has not been met and much of this is outside of the Council's direct control. However, cases such as those outlined above will be continuously monitored throughout the coming year to minimise the impact on achieving the 2016/17 target and maximise the Council's income returns.

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Employment, Planning & Growth Portfolio

Service Delivery Summary

• The Council played a key role in enabling the devolution agreement for the Liverpool City Region, which transferred a range of powers and responsibilities focussed on skills, transport, planning and economic development to the sub-region.

• The Council is part of the Liverpool City Region (LCR) Combined Authority consortium, which has successfully been awarded European Social Fund (ESF) and Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) funding worth £4.9 million for the Ways to Work project. The Ways to Work programme will provide services to support adults and young people into employment, with a focus on those residents at a distance from the labour market.

• The Council continued to support the economic development and growth of the Borough. Work continued through the joint venture company on the redevelopment of Parkside into a major employment site. The first phase of the West Point retail and leisure site was completed. 2015/16 saw significant progress in the creation of employment land with over 700,000 square foot of land either completed, under construction, with planning approval or with a live planning application.

• The Council’s £1 million Business Grant Programme continued to support business development and job creation. Since its launch between July 2014 and March 2016, the programme has supported 70 business start-ups with a project value of £163,000, allocated micro-grants to 40 existing businesses with a project value of over £700,000, and provided business support grants to a total of 63 companies to support their growth and development.

• A new Local Plan for the Borough is being developed, setting out the planning priorities for the Borough and will allocate sites for housing, employment, retail, and green space land development. The Local Development Scheme, which sets out the process, has been approved. The Bold Forest Park Area Action Plan was also approved and will form part of the statutory Local Plan. The "Scoping" public consultation on the Local Plan was completed in March 2016 and provided an opportunity for land owners / developers to suggest potential sites for development.

• St.Helens is the lead authority for the Spatial Planning agenda for the Combined Authority and is the lead on the City Region Spatial Plan and the City Region Strategic Housing and Employment Land Market Assessment (SHELMA).

• The Council continued to chair the Liverpool City Region Planning Officers group. A draft Statement of Cooperation document was produced setting out the joint approach to planning across the City Region.

• Building on the work of the Town Centre Commission, a Town Centre Manager was appointed and consultants were engaged to produce a study ‘Shaping the Future of St. Helens Town Centre’ to assist in supporting local business and developing the area. Free car parking and bus travel was provided by the Council at key times to promote the Town centre as a retail destination.

• Earlestown town centre was designated as a conservation area in recognition of its heritage significance linked to the industrial revolution. A heritage management plan has been developed and an application for funding will be submitted to the Townscape Heritage Initiative Scheme to deliver a heritage led regeneration programme for the area.

• St.Helens Council was successful in securing a joint project with O2 / Telefonica for the promotion of Digital Communities. The national pilot project undertook a number

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of initiatives that focused on supporting commerce and employment prospects in St Helens Town Centre and ensuring that local businesses and communities make the most of digital connectivity.

Performance Indicator Outturn Summary

Indicators achieving target include:

• The Town Centre has experienced a number of business closures and fluctuations in occupancy rates during 2015/16. However, the number of retail vacancies as a proportion of total stock is 9.1% at outturn, which is an improvement on the previous year’s outturn of 9.7%.

• A total of 11 companies located into the borough with the assistance of Regeneration Services bringing a total of 104 new jobs. The number of new jobs created is a significant increase on the 2014/15 outturn (42 jobs). A number of the new companies are large employers in logistics and manufacturing and the scale of the industrial workspace development has resulted in more jobs, including some higher skilled roles in manufacturing.

• At outturn 2015/16, the latest DWP data measuring the number of working age population claiming out of work benefits is for the period to August 2015. The rate in St Helens is 12.9%, which is better than the previous year (14.6%). The gap with the national average is gradually reducing; although currently the national rate is lower (9.2%). The NW average also remains lower and stands at 10.9%

• Performance in processing planning applications remains strong, with all three indicators meeting target throughout the year.

Indicators not meeting target include:

• At outturn 2015/16, the ONS Annual Population Survey (APS) data for the period Jan-Dec 2015 shows the employment rate in St Helens is 69.5%, a 3.1% increase compared to the same period last year, which is a greater increase than regional (2%) and national (1.2%) comparators. The Council continues to coordinate a number of initiatives, including apprenticeships and supporting business start-up and growth, which aim to have a positive effect on this indicator.

• The self-employment rate in St Helens missed target, with 7.2% of the working age population employed. Performance has also dipped compared to the previous outturn (2014/15) of 7.6%. A trend towards self-employment is noted as a national trend, although St. Helens rate remains considerably lower than regional (8.8%) and national (10.2%) averages.

• At outturn 2015/16, 9.3% of working age adults were claiming Employment Support Allowance (ESA) or Incapacity Benefit (IB) in St Helens. Data is for the period to August 2015. St Helens claimant rate remains higher than regional (8%) and national (6.3%) averages, although the gap with the North West has decreased slightly.

• The number of new business registrations in the period to November 2015 was 615, a 4% decrease on the same period in 2014 (640 new businesses). With the exception of Knowsley, St Helens performance mirrors that of the local authorities in the Liverpool City Region. The Council’s new business grant programme continues to support local enterprises.

• Over the course of 2015/16, 11 new companies located into the borough with the assistance of Regeneration services, which is a slight improvement on the previous year (10 companies). Newly built units and expansion of some sites have stimulated

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the commercial property market, resulting in a number of large logistics and manufacturing employers moving into the Borough. Construction is continuing and it is expected that while the companies attracted to the area may be relatively few in number, the large size of the units being developed will result in a high number of jobs being created in the coming year.

• The percentage of plan checks completed by the Building Control team was 94.12%, which was a slight dip in performance compared to last year (96.87%). However, performance remains strong when compared to similar local authorities.

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Green, Smart and Sustainable Portfolio

Service Delivery Summary

• The Council approved plans for a £2.9 million investment in phase 2 of the Invest to Save Street Lighting project which will see the replacement of over 9,700 inefficient street lighting lanterns with energy efficient LED lights. The project will achieve energy savings estimated at over £420,000 a year, as well as significant environmental benefits.

• A Primary Authority Partnership agreement was established with City Facilities Management (UK) Ltd, whereby the Council's Environmental Health Section provides advice, guidance and direction on compliance with Health and Safety legislation.

• An Air Quality Action Plan was completed setting out the measures that the Council will take to ensure compliance with environmental legislation. 4 Air Quality Management Areas are operating within the Borough to help ensure that air quality objectives are being met.

• Environmental wardens launched an enforcement initiative to tackle the problem of waste being dumped in household alleyways. Twelve hotspot areas were targeted, with guidance provided to all households detailing how and when different waste streams are collected. A programme of follow up visits was then conducted with fixed penalty notices issued to persistent offenders.

• The Council’s Dog Welfare and Enforcement Service achieved the RSPCA’s Community Animal Welfare Footprints (CAWF) Bronze Award for the team’s work and operational practices relating to animal welfare.

• Trading Standards Officers were involved in a number of seizures of illegal counterfeit postage stamps, illicit alcohol and tobacco products, and also dangerous cigarette lighters being sold at off-licences and convenience stores across the Borough.

• Test purchasing schemes were undertaken to ensure age restriction legislation is complied with including identifying retailers selling alcohol, tobacco products, knives and e-cigarettes to under-18s. Trading standards also undertook checks on a wide range of other products to ensure compliance with required safety standards.

• A number of public awareness raising initiatives to support and protect local people, particularly the most vulnerable were delivered by Trading Standards. These included scam mails, avoiding the use of ‘copy-cat’ websites when purchasing goods or services, trialling call blocking technology to prevent scam phone calls, and a number of outreach events around Older People’s day in October.

• DCLG funding of £314,784 was successfully secured for the Recycling Reward Scheme. The scheme was launched in October 2015, with more than 9,000 residents signing up. Other new recycling initiatives were also successfully introduced, including textile recycling and recycling for flats.

• A study is underway to investigate the feasibility of sorting and disposing of recyclable materials within a bulking/sorting facility at Hardshaw Book Depot, which if successful will create efficiencies both financially and operationally.

• An Executive Development Chef was appointed by the schools catering service to work with schools and pupils to expand the range of food on offer, develop new recipes and encourage a healthier balanced diet. The Catering Service successfully achieved Bronze status Food for Life Accreditation, in recognition of the freshness

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and nutritional value of its products. Approximately 9,000 or 75% of primary school pupils have taken up the universal free school meals offer.

• As part of the St Helens Healthy Weight Strategy 'Healthy Balance 2014 - 2017', 6 Outdoor gyms were successfully installed at Queens Park, Sherdley Park, Mesnes Park, Nanny Goat Park, Old Lane Recreation Ground (Rainhill) and Taylor Park. This supports the reduction in sedentary behaviour and consequences such as obesity.

Performance Indicator Outturn Summary

Indicators achieving target include:

• A total of 13 Green Flag awards were gained during the year, 2 more than the previous year. Keeping the infrastructure and maintenance to a high quality throughout the year combined with successful public events has continued to ensure the parks and green spaces remain popular with local residents and visitors.

• The Council’s Green House Gas Emissions showed a further in year reduction and emissions are now 22% lower than the 2009/10 baseline. The Council will continue to address emissions through measures including improvements in energy management practice and investment in green technology.

• The visits to high risk food premises met target with 100% of planned annual visits completed, maintaining the strong performance of the past 5 years.

• Over 430 alleyway inspections were carried out in 2015/16 in a number of pilot areas, considerably better than target (100 inspections). This was a new indicator for 2015/16 and therefore it is not possible to compare performance to the previous year. The pilot areas currently number approximately 2,500 properties in discreet areas, which are characterized by "back to back" terraced properties with central alleyways- these are typically the areas that rank highest for illegal domestic waste tipping. Due to the success of the initiative, the pilot areas are due to be expanded in 2016/17, utilising Cleansing Operatives in addition to the Environmental Warden team. It is anticipated that this will further improve performance.

Indicators not meeting target include:

• Household recycling rates at 41% did not achieve the expected outturn performance. However the trend over the past 4 years has been very positive, increasing by over 10%. Performance remains strong compared to authorities across the Liverpool City Region. Further work will be undertaken to educate households to recycle more and areas of low participation will be targeted through enforcement strategies.

• At year end 2015/16, 50.22% of municipal waste was sent to landfill, which is a decrease in performance compared to 2014/15. The outturn demonstrates that further work is required to educate households about the need to recycle. The ‘closed lid / no side waste enforcement strategy will target the lowest participating areas in 2016/17. Recycling rates in St. Helens compare favourable to other Merseyside authorities.

• At outturn 2015/16, 91% of streets in St Helens were judged to be free of litter. Performance has dipped slightly compared to the previous year (95%). However, a more rigorous inspection regime has been in place since October 2015 and enables the service to benchmark performance against the APSE Land Audit Management System.

• Fly tipping increased substantially compared to last year by around 23%, with over 1800 incidents reported. The primary waste type is household waste, which is left in

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rear alleyways to properties and is often difficult to trace to an individual and therefore it is difficult to take enforcement action. A fly tipping prevention pilot scheme started in September 2015. Information was provided to residents in the target areas, highlighting the methods of recycling and disposing of waste. Follow up visits were then conducted in the target areas and has evidenced a small reduction in household waste left in rear alleyways. Further work, including the issue of households without a brown bin needs to be addressed.

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Public Health and Wellbeing Portfolio

Service Delivery Summary

Over the course of 2015/16 in the Public Health and Wellbeing Portfolio there has been significant progress in terms of new services being developed and delivered to improve the lives of local people. Highlights have included:

• Commissioning responsibility for the 0-5 Healthy Child programme (health visiting and family nurse partnership) successfully transferred to St Helens Council from NHS England, representing a £2.7 million annual investment in Public Health Services. The Healthy Living Team now manages the Health Trainer service and Infant Feeding Support services, which were brought in house during the year.

• St Helens’ co-ordinated approach to health communications and marketing through campaigns with the use of a variety of media was highlighted by Public Health England and NHS England as best practice.

• The Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategic Framework was approved in September 2015, two of the action plans are led by public health, which are to promote good mental wellbeing; and to prevent suicides. Some developments from these plans include the ‘Time to Talk’ campaign, launched in October 2015, which was very successful with over 20,000 minutes of conversations taking place in the first 3 months to improve mental wellbeing or help referral to mental health services. The second phase of this campaign will be delivered later in 2016/17

• A new ‘early help’ service was launched for children and young people experiencing poor emotional health, providing both face to face and online counselling. The service launched in July and had received 665 referrals by the end of March 2016.

• A newly commissioned speech, language and communication service for children and young people started in July 2015, with additional investment to reduce waiting times for therapy.

• By March 2016, 6,887 people in St Helens had signed up to become Dementia Friends, a national campaign which seeks to raise awareness about the condition and help people to understand what life can be like living with the condition. As of June 2016, this had increased to over 8,000, in part due to a campaign in collaboration with the St Helens Star, using local real life stories around dementia. Public Health has also supported scrutiny in the development of the Scrutiny Review of Dementia Friendly St Helens.

• St. Helens Healthy Living team delivered a number of initiatives to children, young people and their families to promote the importance of healthy eating, exercise and wellbeing. The “Pirates in the Park” initiative, “Swap the Pop” campaign and Health and Wellbeing Governors scheme in schools were shortlisted in the Public Health category of the Local Government Chronicle Awards 2016.

• Successful campaigns such as Stoptober and Quitmas have supported an increase in the number of people quitting smoking. St. Helens Smokefree service launched a Quit Pal mobile app to support people to stop smoking, developed bespoke promotional material and will continue to provide the Smokefree Midwife service to support pregnant women to stop smoking. Smoking prevalence amongst young people fell from 18% in 2013 to 8% in 2014 as reported by the Trading Standards North West survey of 14-17 year olds. This mirrors a fall in the North West.

• The latest Pupil Health and Wellbeing Survey identified that more children are walking or cycling to and from school and eating fruit and vegetables than last year. However, issues were identified in areas such as cyber bullying, caring

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responsibilities, pupils not having breakfast and the number of pupils eating sweets on most days. Schools have been encouraged to use the findings within their own settings and have been incorporated into the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. They will be utilised to ensure services and interventions are developed to meet local need.

Wellbeing Services

• The Arts service continued to help deliver a number of successful programmes, including the Cultural Hubs programme and the Heart of Glass project. Projects this year have included Creative Alternatives; an arts on prescription workshop for adults with mild to moderate mental health illness, Take Over Fest; a range of events aimed at LGBT audiences, the Family Art Club and the ‘Your Name Here’ public art programme. The Cultural Coordinator worked with the Integrated Access St. Helens Team (IASH) in Adult Social Care and Health to engage with over 30 elderly people identified as being socially isolated.

• The Library Service was nominated for the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Award: Libraries Change Lives for its renowned Cultural Hubs programme. A libraries Facebook account has proved very popular with customers, reaching over 2,000 people every month. This is in addition to the successful twitter account. St. Helens was chosen by the Reading Agency to deliver the Chatterbooks reading club programme to primary schools. The scheme promotes reading for pleasure, an important factor shown to influence a young person’s development and success in later life.

• Sports Development continued to deliver many successful programmes, including Sportivate, which provides funding to sports clubs to provide coaching for 13-24 year olds; the Doorstep Sports Club; Coach Education programme; Community Sport programme and the annual sports festival. The Sport England 2015 Active People survey results showed an increase in adults in St. Helens undertaking exercise both once a week for 30 minutes and three times a week for 30 minutes. The results showed a significant increase in female participation and a small increase in male participation. The results are in contrast to our statistical neighbours who saw decreases in participation over the same period.

• The Master Plan for the new Ruskin Drive sports complex site was developed and approved by the Council in May 2015.

Performance Indicator Outturn Summary

Indicators achieving target include:

• A total of 896 individuals were reported to have quit smoking during 2015/16 through the new Smokefree service which was commissioned in April 2015. Numbers accessing services to stop smoking have declined over the last 2 years in line with national trends; however the new Smokefree service in St. Helens is offering a much broader range of support services to assist people to stop smoking. There is also a greater emphasis on education and prevention with young people who were engaged in the design of the Smokefree Cars campaign in September.

• The mortality rate from all cancers showed a small reduction from the previous year. Although there has been a change in recording methodology, the rate for January – December 2015 (165 per 100,000 population) fell compared with the equivalent rate (171 per 100,000 population) in the previous calendar year. A number of targeted public health initiatives will be promoted to encourage both prevention and early detection. Comparisons nationally and to other local authorities are not currently

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available for 2015. However, historically cancer mortality rates in the Borough have been higher than both the national and North West averages, but have been lower than in other LCR boroughs with the exception of Wirral.

• The percentage of children overweight or obese in Year 6 fell by nearly 3%, to 34% between 2014/15 and 2015/16, bringing performance much closer to the national and NW averages of 33.2% and 33.8% respectively. Further Initiatives undertaken as part of the Healthy Weight Strategy will continue to address obesity.

• The three-year rate for under-18 admissions for alcohol specific reasons met target and remained in line with the previous year’s outturn, with 80 admissions recorded in each time period. Admission rates remain higher than the England average. A new alcohol treatment service is being tendered for by Public Health to encourage greater community involvement in reducing alcohol related harm and ultimately hospital admissions. Reducing adult drinking would also be expected to have an impact on young people’s behaviour.

• The latest outturn data for under-18 conceptions for the period 2012 to 2014 showed a further reduction in the 3-year rolling rate to 36.2 per 1,000 15 – 17 year olds, although the actual number of conceptions in 2014 (110) showed a small increase on the 2013 figures (106). Despite strong progress in recent years, St. Helens rate remains high, in comparison to statistical neighbours, the NW and national rates. Drawing on evidence and best practice from other areas, the merged Teenage Pregnancy and Family Nurse Partnership Board have identified a series of strengthened actions to address this priority and further reduce rates.

• Provisional outturn data suggests that 22.1% of women were breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks after birth, a 1.6% increase on the previous year’s figure. Despite meeting target, breastfeeding rates remain low. The transfer of the Infant Feeding Support service to the Council in October 2016 and the extended support now provided is anticipated to support improved performance in this area.

• The number of visits to libraries exceeded target by 1%, with a total of 868,231 visits. The number of visits was less than the previous year, which reflects a declining national trend, in part driven by cuts to opening hours and closure of libraries nationally. Despite a reduction in opening hours, the number of visits to libraries within the Borough performs well when compared to statistical neighbours. Success is attributed to the strong programme of events and activities provided throughout the year to support literacy skills, learning and access to cultural services.

• The numbers of people accessing the Council’s Adult and Community Learning (ACL) courses exceeded target by 26%, with a total of 1,644 learners. Outturn figures were higher than initially anticipated due to funding received for a pilot project to fund courses for learners with mild to moderate mental health issues. However the decrease in total numbers from the previous year when there were 1,854 learners is due to the core funding reductions for accredited learning experienced nationally by all Adult Learning providers. The focus of ACL during 2015/16 was to continue to attract harder to reach learners to the first rung, non-accredited community learning courses, where funding remained constant.

• With 1,139,506 visits during 2015/16, the Council’s leisure centres finished over 49,500 visits better than target. Encouragingly, visits were over 47,000 up on the previous year. Sports Development also exceeded target for the number of attendances at its events by some margin, with a total of 46,758 attendances, with the increase due to continued success in securing further external funding to provide additional events and activities.

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• Visits to the World of Glass and the Citadel Arts Centre both exceeded target. The World of Glass annual target was exceeded by 33%, with nearly 63,200 visits. The reason given was that the World of Glass was able to draw on business reserves during 2015/16 to invest in new services and thereby increase visitor numbers. The Citadel exceeded target by 10% with nearly 26,000 visits. The increase in visits was put down to increased hire events, increased day opportunity attendance and Arts Council funding secured to enable additional events. The increase in attendances at both the World of Glass and the Citadel during 2015/16 exceeded attendances of the previous year.

Indicators not meeting target include:

• All age mortality rates for both males and females over the period January to December 2015 failed to meet target and increased slightly on the equivalent rate for the same period in the previous year. The latest comparative data shows rates to be above both England and NW averages. It is acknowledged that it can be difficult to ensure a consistent reduction as the indicator is influenced by many factors including changes in the economy, environment and lifestyle and healthcare service. However, to address this programmes of work include, implementing the Map of Medicine in general practice, work to improve cancer screening uptake, NHS health checks and working closely with the CCG on commissioning for value to tackle variation in healthcare.

• The mortality rate from all circulatory diseases also saw a small rise over the period January to December 2015, increasing to 97.5 per 100,000 population, compared to 87.3 per 100,000 population in the previous calendar year. Public Health will undertake analysis of the data to better understand the nature of the increase and to better target prevention. A number of preventative initiatives around ensuring good heart health continue to be promoted as a priority. However, historically mortality rates from circulatory diseases in the Borough have been higher than the national average and slightly above the North West average. Of the 6 LCR local authorities St Helens has traditionally had the 3rd lowest mortality rates behind Sefton and Wirral.

• The latest mortality rate from liver disease is 33.5 per 100,000 population and relates to the period January 2013 to December 2015. The outturn has not met target and registered deaths from liver disease increased slightly on the equivalent rate for the previous 3 year period. St. Helens' 2012-14 rate of 32.5 per 100,000 was higher than the North West and national rates (25.4 and 17.8 per 100,000 respectively) and there is much to be done to reduce mortality from liver disease. Initiatives include close working between nurses, GPs and the treatment provider ‘Addaction’ to explore how people who are frequently accessing hospital services can be better supported to access longer-term community based treatment.

• The percentage of children in reception year who are overweight and obese at outturn 2015/16 at 25.5% was marginally worse than the target of 25%. However, there has been a decreasing trend of excess weight from a high of 32% in 2007/08 to the current outturn. There has also been a significant reduction in the gap between St. Helens’ performance and the England and NW average. Despite these improvements, St. Helens rate of 25.5% remains higher than the respective NW and England averages of 23% and 22%. Further initiatives undertaken as part of the Healthy Weight Strategy will continue to address obesity.

• Provisional data for the number of alcohol related admissions to hospital shows a rate of 3,441.9 per 100,000 population, which just failed to meet the target rate of 3,424. Historically admission rates in the Borough have been higher than both the national and NW averages, but have been similar to the Halton rate and lower than in

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other LCR boroughs with the exception of Sefton. The admission rate increased slightly compared with the equivalent rate of 3,308 for 2014/15. A new alcohol treatment service is being tendered for by Public Health to encourage greater community involvement in reducing alcohol related harm and ultimately hospital admissions.

• The outturn figure for 2015/16 for the percentage of drug users who leave treatment and do not re-present for treatment again within 6 months, was 11.08%, against a target of 15.5%. Performance is slightly worse than the national average for opiate and non-opiate clients. Performance in the previous year exceeded 14%. However, because of the relatively small cohort of people in treatment, small changes in outcome will inevitably impact on the percentage success rate. Public Health will continue to work closely with the service provider to understand the decrease in performance.

• The provisional Chlamydia diagnosis rate per 100,000 15-24 year olds at 2,069 is low compared to both the aspirational target of 2,300 and the previous year’s outturn. However, Public Health England is currently reviewing all quarter 2 figures due to nationally identified data discrepancies. Data for this indicator will therefore be updated when this revised national data becomes available. A review of chlamydia screening across the Borough has been undertaken and service redesign is progressing with a view to improving the way in which young people are encouraged to prevent infection and seek treatment if needed.

• The outturn for the number of active library members at 36,067 was 4% below target and just over 900 members down on the previous year. To try to halt the decline in active membership promotion of the service will continue, coupled with a review of membership criteria to try and make it easier for people to join.

• The indicator monitoring the number of items borrowed through libraries was 19% below target at the end of 2015/16 with 586,373 items borrowed. This continues the trend of items borrowed falling nationally. It is evident that locally many customers are using libraries, but habits are changing with fewer people borrowing library books. It is hoped that growth of the e-book service will partially help to counter this trend. The service continues to use creative ideas to encourage borrowing.

• At outturn, there were 142,528 public IT sessions in libraries, compared to a target of 170,000. The replacement of all equipment in all libraries was planned for 2015/16, to counter the decline in performance. However, during 2015/16 equipment was only replaced in Central library. All other libraries are on hold pending the outcome of the transformation agenda.

• Over the course of the year visits to the golf course and driving range finished 15% behind target. There were nearly a 1,000 rounds less played during 2015/16 compared to the previous year, reflecting falling national participation and an ever more competitive market. The driving range fared better than the golf course, finishing 50 visits ahead of target and 2,550 up on the previous year.

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Transport, Housing and Community Safety Portfolio Service Delivery Summary

• Approval for the provision of new long-distance direct rail services from St Helens stations to key economic centres, including Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh, was granted following successful lobbying.

• The £5 million Highways Maintenance Invest to Save scheme, which commenced in 2013, was completed in March 2016, with all planned highways maintenance works completed.

• Following Cabinet approval for a major scheme to improve the A570/ A580 (Windle Island) junction, detailed scheme analysis and design has now commenced. A site start is expected in the autumn of 2016 with a completion in autumn 2018 subject to major statutory utility diversions required, which could be seasonal.

• The Liverpool City Region Sustainable Transport Enhancements Package (STEP) was awarded funding in May 2015. St Helens was awarded £1.58 million over two years to deliver improvements to junctions and pedestrian and cycle routes. Work is underway at a number of sites, with improved access to Haydock Industrial Estate, St. Helens Town Centre, the Newton / Parkside area and Sankey Valley, Blackbrook.

• Merseytravel approved funding and programming for two additional schemes in the Better Bus Fund programme. The Holt Lane junction and Longton Lane junction improvement works to improve bus access are now complete.

• Phase 1 of the £1.7 million Invest to Save street lighting scheme progressed well, with final completion due in June 2016, delivering both energy efficiencies and cost savings. Phase 2 of the scheme was approved in August 2015 and will see the installation of a further 9,700 energy efficient LED street lights across the Borough.

• Five 20mph speed zones have been completed across St. Helens and will contribute to improving road safety and reducing the number of road casualties.

• The third phase of the Local Centres Programme received approval from Cabinet on 1 April 2015. A further £500,000 was approved following the successful completion of Phases 1 and 2 to improve access and parking around local shopping centres to promote their economic regeneration. During the year, 8 centres have been completed bringing the total number to 23 across all areas.

• An updated Mid Mersey Strategic Housing Market Assessment covering St Helens, Warrington and Knowsley was undertaken with questionnaires distributed to housing associations and private rented landlord providers to assess the demand for housing. This will inform future planning and housing strategies.

• The Council is now responsible for flood risk across the Borough under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. A flood risk reduction scheme at Bell Lane was completed reducing long standing flood risk to 3 properties and farmland. Following storm Eva in December 2016 and flooding of properties, further schemes are in development for Beech Gardens, Rainford and potentially for West End Road, Haydock.

• Action to reduce fuel poverty across the Borough continued. The Winter Warmth scheme distributed over 6,000 winter survival packs to older and vulnerable households to prevent excess winter deaths and reduce fuel poverty. The Warm Homes Discount initiative provided 1,260 residents with £140 each off their winter electricity bill, a total saving to residents’ bills of almost £180,000. The collective energy switch programme also achieved significant savings to local residents’ energy

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bills. The Council successfully won funding from National Energy Action in order to provide heating and insulation improvements to 70 eligible households.

• The Council continued to work with the Salvation Army and YMCA to provide cold weather provision to people at risk of rough sleeping during periods of cold or severe weather. The service provides a humanitarian approach to preventing deaths due to extreme weather and a practical opportunity for some of the more entrenched rough sleepers to re-engage with services and to access the support and accommodation that they need.

• The Council and Salvation Army Housing Association worked collaboratively to secure £143k funding from the Homes and Communities Agency to upgrade the Salisbury House supported housing scheme to ensure that it is accessible to service users with mobility needs.

• A new supported housing scheme, Cherry Tree, opened in October 2015, providing 10 self-contained units for people with mental health needs.

• The Community Safety Partnership (CSP) Annual Survey was undertaken to help determine public perceptions of crime and priorities for the CSP. 450 surveys were completed, with analysis of the responses identifying that anti-social behaviour remains the public’s priority issue, with child sexual exploitation emerging as a key concern. There was a small increase in residents who feel the Borough is a safe place.

• The Community Safety team continued to coordinate a programme of thematic campaigns such as Operation Good Guy, Springwatch and Safe Space to address concerns around anti-social behaviour. Operation Safer Space – ‘Not in our Parks’ was launched in 2015/16, with an emphasis on the illegal use of off road vehicles. Off-road bikers were urged to use their bikes where it is safe, legal and not a nuisance to others such as legitimate racing tracks.

• The Community Safety team, Public Health and a wide range of other partners promoted and supported the ‘Be a Lover Not a Fighter’ campaign, the aim of which was to raise awareness around the issue of domestic abuse, to generate discussion, encourage people to talk about it and gain public support to end it. The campaign was far reaching and had a strong reported impact.

• The Merseyside-wide ‘Listen to My Story’ campaign was promoted locally to raise public awareness of child sexual exploitation (CSE). A website designed for parents, young people, professionals and businesses was developed to provide guidance, improve knowledge and enable people to report CSE cases. Training and awareness raising resources were directed at schools, front-line professionals, taxi drivers, hoteliers and licensing departments.

Performance Indicator Outturn Summary

Indicators achieving target include:

• The percentage of the principal road network and unclassified road network that requires maintenance (rated as ‘red’) remains consistent with the previous year’s outturns. However, there is an underlying trend whereby the proportion of roads in generally good condition (green) is decreasing and the percentage of roads rated ‘at risk’ (amber) is increasing.

• 44 people were killed or seriously injured (KSI) in 2015/16, which is an improvement on the previous outturn of 58. DfT judge the five Merseyside authorities on the overall reduction of KSIs in Merseyside and covers the period 2000 – 2020. St.Helens Council’s contribution to the overall accident reduction is part of the Local Transport

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Plan Objectives. A total of 64 child KSIs were recorded across the whole of Merseyside in 2015/16, which is an 18% improvement on the previous year’s outturn

• There were 575 net housing completions in 2015/16, comprising new builds, conversions of buildings to dwellings and sub-division of dwellings. This is a strong housing delivery performance judged against the projection of 520 dwellings and Core Strategy plan target of 570 dwellings and continues the strong performance over the past three years. Delivery on the larger sites has picked up over the last three years as more private housing sales occurred, indicating a recovery in confidence of house-buyers and a reported improvement in access to mortgages. In 2015/16, 122 of the units were affordable (around 21% of the total), which is strong performance, delivered both through Housing Associations directly and as a requirement through planning permissions.

• Over 91% of service users in the Supporting People Programmer have moved on from supported accommodation to independent living in a planned way in 2015/16. Performance is better than the previous year (80.5%).

• The number of families living in temporary accommodation at outturn 2015/16 was better than the previous year. The team work proactively to minimise the use of temporary accommodation. However, there have been a number of complex cases this year requiring detailed investigation and this extended the time a household was in temporary accommodation.

• A total of 106 private sector vacant dwellings were returned to occupation in 2015/16, which is better than the previous year (78 properties). This reflects the additional resource made available for the ‘New Homes Bonus’ cases.

• At outturn 2015/16, 536 homes have been helped to reduce fuel poverty, which is better than the previous year (398). The Affordable Warmth Unit has provided a number of services to support residents including, helping people access heating and insulation measures, referring clients for benefit entitlement checks, providing a utilities price comparison service and providing advice on the Warm Homes Discount Scheme.

• There was further reduction in the percentage of households living in a low energy efficiency home and a corresponding increase in households living in a high energy efficiency home.

• No homeless households were placed in B&B accommodation in the 2015/16 year. Hostel accommodation was required for homeless families for an average of 5.7 weeks in 2015/16, which although meeting target was a drop in performance compared to the previous year. Where hostel accommodation is used, the service aims to move the household into secure accommodation as soon as possible, depending on individual circumstances.

• At outturn 2015/16, 1,815 serious acquisitive crimes were reported, which is a rate of 10.3 per 1,000 population and an improvement on the previous year (11.23 per 1,000). Performance is slightly better than the average rate for the IQuanta family group. Domestic burglaries are the main offence type committed and this is a focus for the local Police. There are a number of partnership approaches being delivered to address this issue, including Operation Handle and the Integrated Offender Management Scheme.

• There has been a 32% reduction in re-offending rate of the local Integrated Offender Management (IOM) cohort at year end (2015/16). This is better than the same period last year (19%). Serious acquisitive crime is the main crime type committed by the IOM cohort and a 68% reduction in offences has been evidenced. The IOM

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Operational Delivery Group monitors the scheme’s performance monthly, bringing additional partners to contribute at an operational level as necessary.

• At outturn 2015/16, there were 30.3 deliberate secondary fires per 1,000 population, an improvement on the previous year. A series of diversionary measures, high visibility patrols and events have successfully contributed to the 8% reduction in secondary fires compared to 2014/15.

• Results of the Community Safety survey 2015 showed a 2% increase to 78% in the percentage of respondents feeling safe or fairly safe in thei