Transcript

Transcript

in for him. Sue Chandler is joining us remotely. I think otherwise in terms of cabinet members, we're all here. So yeah, I don't think we have any other apologies. Declarations of interest, are there any declarations of interest and items on the agenda? I cannot see there's anything that's at all likely to generate that. There isn't, great, okay, thank you. We have the minutes of our meeting of the 21st of March, which does seem like a very different world. Is everyone content that those are, I can sign those as a correct record of the meeting. Agreed, good, I'll initial and sign those at the end. Great, then we move straight on to the first of our two substantive items, which is the revenue and capital budget monitoring report, which is actually the out turn for the last financial year. And I will turn to Peter to open the baton on the slide.

• Just as my computer opens dead on time, thank you.
• Very good.
• Microphone would help, that's like being on mute. This introduction sets out the provisional budget out turn for 23-24 for both our revenue and our capital budgets. At the end of the financial year, the council is in a position of recording a revenue overspend of 12.4 million, including roll forward requests of 2.8 million. We will all recall that that also includes a 12 million pound contingency that we had in our budget, so the 12 million overspend is after that contingency. Within the overall out turn position, there are significant overspends in adult social care totaling 32.6 million, and in children's services totaling 26.6 million. There may be minor verifications to the final figures in the final stage of this year end process and the external audit. Details of the requested roll forward are provided in this appendix A of the report, and it is recommended that the overspend is funding from the budget stabilization smoothing reserve, which can be found in appendix four. Any drawdown from reserves, as we all know, weakens our financial resilience, and we must ensure that further overspends are mitigated. If we don't do this, we cannot secure our financial sustainability. The total capital program for the year was 21, sorry, 216.4 million, which represents 52.9% of the approved budget. This is a 192.7 million pound underspend against the budget. This is split into two areas. There was a real variance of 5.5 million and 198 of rephrasing. A recommendation to roll forward the rephrasing into the future years is included within the report before us. At the end of this month, production of the first quarterly report will begin, and the forecast position for 24/25 will be presented to September's cabinet. That's the introduction.
• Thank you, Peter. Cath, was there anything you wanted to add on that? Okay, thank you. I mean, my own comments on this would be you can look at this as like so many things, both in glass half full or half empty. On the one side, it is a significant, it's pulled in significantly in terms of the pressures that we saw last summer. You know, at that stage, we were at one point looking towards a near 50 million pound overspend, and a great deal of work has been done, and I would like to thank both cabinet colleagues and officers, particularly for having brought in those spending controls that we saw in the latter part of last year, and a great deal of work that was done to pull us back from what was looking at one point an extremely alarming position. That said, an overspend is an overspend. We have to remember, too, that this was on top of budgets that we felt right-sized on the basis of the pressures that we already saw in '22, '23. So it does emphasize, again, the sheer scale of pressures that we see, particularly in the three policy areas that we know well, so adult social care, children's care placement costs, and SEN, particularly in relation to SEN transport. That's been the case for some time, and remains so. So the focus has got to be, as Peter has indicated as well, on delivering the savings programs that we have in those areas, and over time, breaking the growth rate in such a way that it does not continue to both put pressure on our overall sustainability, and also squeeze us yet further in terms of those other areas of council activity, which happen to be those that are most visible in the daily lives of our residents. So there is still a major, major task to be done. I thank everybody for the progress that we have made. I think securing Ken's future gives us a good framework, and a great deal of work has been done. But, as I say, an overspend is an overspend. We are still overspend. We are still under pressure. We still have a lot more to do. So thank you for what's been done so far, but a big task still ahead. Anyone with any other comments on this item? Dylan.
• Thank you, leader. Just to echo your comments of thanks to all involved in terms of getting us to this position. It's not been a pleasant journey, but I think compared to where we were when we started on this process mid-financial year, we are in an exceptionally better position than we could have been. And I think at this time, we're two weeks away from a new government, and I think there's no knight in shining armor coming over the horizon. I think we know from potentially, certainly what looks like an incoming Labour government, they're not gonna offer us anything, quite frankly, and we're gonna have to continue on this path of localized, shall we say, austerity here in Kent, because just like when the last Labour government left, they left a note saying the cupboard was bare. I think they're coming in telling us the cupboard's bare from the very outset. So I think that this is a path that must continue. We must get adults and childrens under control. We know that, and therefore that needs perhaps more focus and a recognition that whilst we are starting to put things in place, we need to move harder, swift and smarter. But overall, I think, just again to reiterate and echo your comments, leader, of thanks to all involved in getting us to this place.
• Yeah, thank you. I think it's entirely right to say that we know pretty much what our external environment is gonna be. Whatever happens on 4th of July, we know that it's going to remain a pretty difficult environment. And salvation has got to rest in our own hands. So we know what the scale of that task is. So thank you. Rory.
• Yeah, thank you, leader. I think the financial position that you've highlighted with respect to children's services and in particular to education just emphasizes the importance of the reforms that we're making, especially in the special educational needs arena. And we're doing that, of course, alongside the Department for Education and NHS England as we work through our improvement notice. But these are changes that we need to make. We need to bring our spending back into balance with the funds that are available to us. We need to target that resource to those who most need our support. And quite clearly, we need to reduce the burden on the council taxpayers. I think there's a number of examples now starting to work through the system, which I'll be pleased to report back on at future meetings, which demonstrate that we're getting that under control. We're getting the budgets back into balance. We're targeting the resource where we need to target it. And I think one of the things that is perhaps not always clear in the reporting that we have is the risk of not doing that in the school's delegated budgets. Because at the moment, there's a temporary arrangement that the government has introduced, which means that deficits on those budgets do not show on the bottom line of local authorities' own budgets. But that's not going to last forever. Indeed, I think it's another couple of years or so before such deficits would show. And that's why it's so important that we do the work that's highlighted, amongst other places on page 20 of our report here, to tackle the deficit where we have been overspending. We've been investing far more than the funds that we have available in the special educational needs arena. And we've got to get that back into balance. We're doing work on that. But if we don't, it not only affects the revenue fund as we see it today, but it potentially has a much greater effect in another couple of years' time when the temporary arrangements are no longer in place. And we find that any high needs fund deficit does show up on the Council's own books. And what that means is it shows up in terms of Council taxpayers. So it emphasizes, I think, all of this, the importance of the work that we're undertaking. Some difficult decisions sometimes have to be made, but it's absolutely essential that we continue to make those decisions. Thank you, Lita.
• Thank you, Rory. And I think that that is an important point. I mean, if you look at what both the LGA and the County Council's network have been talking about, there's something like nationally a four billion pound on unrealized gap or unrealized deficit on the high needs block. Most of the Councils in that, of course, are not as we are within a safety valve arrangement. So there are challenges for those of us who are within the safety valve, and there are challenges for those who are not. But either way, it is still a massive, massive problem. So thank you for that. Any other comments from anyone? Penny.
• Thank you, Chair. Dan hasn't left me anything to say, so I'm just going to say a few things, how I see things have happened over the last few years. And obviously, we're still living under a COVID issue where everyone, all the older people were just taken out of hospital, put in short-term beds, and those ended up to long-term beds. And what with the inflation, our costs, the cost of care has massively increased. I am rather a half glass full sort of person. I always like to see the positives, and I think over the last couple of years, I mean, our directorate, and I'd like to thank Richard and the team, and the team we have now for the total focus on ensuring that we're doing everything we can to reduce those costs, to ensure that we aren't using short-term beds, getting the ICB on board to come with us. And that's a difficult journey, obviously getting them to understand that we don't have a bottomless pit and money. We have to live within our envelope. And I think there is a lot more from the last 16 years I've worked, I've been a KCC counselor. The NHS are beginning to understand, I think, and it's been huge amount of work to get them to understand that we both have to do things differently, and I think that's starting to work. And going forward with the making a difference every day, doing things differently, making our residents, putting them at the front, but also when you put them at the front of decisions, their outcomes are better, but helpfully, it helps us financially. It makes getting people living at home helps us financially as well. So it's a drive that we're doing, and the next year, I'm hoping, Dan is hoping that everything we're doing, getting more providers on the frameworks, reducing costs, we'll really start to see things working. And we're positive, we're both positive that things are, you will see good things happening, certainly over the next year. But it's hard work, it's like a tanker, and it's hard to turn it around in a very quick time, but we're hoping that you will see a difference.
• Penny, thank you for that, and I absolutely endorse. I think there are important conversations between ourselves and the NHS, the ICB in particular. I think we'll probably be bringing to a number of our discussions how we build that, keep building that relationship, and I think it has been worked on a lot. I've certainly worked on it a lot in the last few years. On the savings program, yeah, I mean, I think we all know that a huge amount rests on successful delivery of all our savings programs, and that's very, recognize a big challenge for adult social care, so it is very important that we do that, and that because really it is hard to see how, as a council, we can operate if we don't. So I think that's going to be absolutely critical for us over the next year or two. So thank you for that very much. Anyone else with any comments? If not, I will read out the recommendations. Cabinet is asked to note the capital and revenue out-term position for 2023-24. Agree that 2.097 million pounds is rolled forward to fund existing criteria, as set out in Appendix 1. Agree that 0.675 million is rolled forward to fund the member grants, as per Appendix 1. Agree the drawing down of 12.372 million pounds from smoothing reserves to fund the 2023-24 overspend. Agree the 198.2 million pounds of capital slippage or rephrasing from 2023-24 will be added to the 2024-25 and later years capital budgets, as per Section 11 and Appendix 2. Note the review of the capital program. Agree the proposed cash limit changes totalling 86.180 million, as per Appendix 3. And agree the change is made as a result of the reserves review, as per Appendix 4. Is all that agreed?
• Agreed.
• Good, thank you very much. And can I also actually just take the opportunity, Kath, to thank you and your colleagues in finance, again, for all the work, because this is a huge task and in that work to bring us back from that hugely challenging position in the summer of last year. You and your colleagues have put in an enormous amount and we recognise that, so thank you very much as well. Please do, thank you. Good, right, we move on to our second substantive item, which is the quarterly performance report. Matt, if I may come straight to you.
• Thank you, leader. This is the fourth and final quarterly performance report for the 2023-24 financial year, covering the period between January and March 2024. As this is the final quarterly report covering 2023-24, the report will also be going to full council on the 18th of July. Today's report provides the update on KPI performance, but as usual, within cabinet, it will focus on the change compared to the previous quarter, whereas the report for full council will draw out some more of those year-on-year changes that we've seen, as that report only goes to that forum annually. So in terms of the overall RAG statuses, performance has only changed a little compared to quarter three. Out of the 38 KPIs, 17 are RAG rated green, which is the same as Q3, 11 are RAG rated amber, which is one fewer than quarter three, and 10 are RAG rated red, which is one more than quarter three. The direction of travel analysis, which looks at whether there's a statistically significant trend over the last six quarters, shows nine indicators with a positive trend, which is two more than the previous quarter, 20 with either a stable or no clear trend, and nine showing a negative trend, which is two fewer than in the previous quarter. There is just one change to the list of red KPIs compared to the last quarter, which is the addition of the KPI on customer satisfaction with routine highway service delivery, which is based on the 100 callback survey. The 10 indicators that are RAG rated red are under customer services, the percentage of complaints responded to within time scale. This dropped significantly again in quarter four after a large improvement in the previous two quarters, and it's now 24 percentage points below the floor standard. Under governance and law, we have the Freedom of Information Act requests completed within 20 working days. This has a stable direction of travel over a long time and has been red for some time. Similarly, subject access requests completed within the statutory time scales has been red for some time. This, however, has a negative direction of travel and is significantly below the floor standard. Under environment and transport, the percentage of customers satisfied with routine highway service delivery, as I mentioned previously, is a new red this quarter. It has gone up and down a little bit this year, and it's three percentage points below the floor standard in the latest quarter. Negative feedback from our customers included dissatisfaction at the time it took for issues, such as drainage problems and pothole repairs to be resolved. Under children, young people, and education, we have the percentage of education and healthcare plans issued within 20 weeks. As predicted in the previous quarter, this KPI continued on a downward trend and is now at 13%, so it's very significantly below the floor standard. Much of the focus recently of the assessment teams has been on working through a very large backlog, which has now reduced very significantly and is a fraction of what it was previously. The number of ECPs issued during quarter four was well over twice the number issued at the same time, the same quarter in the previous year as the backlog has dealt with. And as a result, there's a significant reduction in the number of open assessments that are already beyond the 20-week timescale. However, there's still some way to go on the backlog, and so we expect to see the KPI probably plateau in the next quarter and then start to see an improvement from the quarter following that quarter two. Another red within CYPE is the percentage of pupils that have ECPs that are being placed in independent or outer county special schools. This KPI tends to move very slowly but went slightly in the right direction compared to the previous quarter. Within a year, we might expect to see the most significant change at the end of quarter two after some children changed their school phase in September. So that's where we'd expect to see the most significant change on that KPI. We also have the percentage of case-holding posts filled by permanent qualified social workers, which saw a slight improvement on the last quarter and is now 1.4 percentage points below the floor standard. And finally, within CYPE, the percentage of foster care placements which are in-house with relatives and friends excluding unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. It's 1.1 percentage points below the floor standard. There is an impact on those placements due to the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and the need for placements for those children as well. It's got a relatively stable direction of travel and has been fluctuating around this level for some time. The final directorates where we've got two reds is the Adult Social Care and Health Directorate. Firstly is the percentage of new care needs assessments delivered within 28 days. This is reported a quarter in arrears and was seven percentage points below the floor standard. Although it has improved seven percentage points over the last two quarters, which is positive. And finally, long-term support needs of older people aged 65 or over that are met by admission to residential and nursing care homes per 100,000 again it's reported a quarter in arrears, was on a fairly consistent negative direction of travel for at least five quarters but actually improved slightly in the last quarter, which is positive. So it will be interesting to see how that moves in next quarter and hopefully we'll see that continue in that positive direction. There are no KPIs that are rated red under growth economic development in communities or under public health. In terms of the wider context of these KPIs, demand remains high for many services. A couple of examples of this are initial requests for EHC plans continue on an upward trajectory. In adult social care, the number of people requiring ongoing support continues to increase, especially those with mental health needs and safeguarding inquiries has also continued to increase, which has an impact on workload for the teams. And currently the currently active highways inquiries and jobs that, as I said, that are currently active are at the highest level that we've seen for at least the last 10 years. There are some amber rated KPIs that are close to their floor standard. I'll highlight, there's probably four of these, I'll highlight two of these, which are the potential pupils permanently excluded from school, that is on the floor standard and has a negative direction of travel and also first time entrance to the justice system, which is close to the floor standard also has a negative direction of travel. So those are ones to watch out for in coming quarters. There are some positive news stories as well, despite those continued challenges. So call of satisfaction with contact point advisors has met or exceeded target for at least the last six quarters. The number of homes brought back to market through no use empty achieved the highest 12 month performance for over two years. Visits to add issues from Kent libraries continue to exceed the levels seen for the same period in the last year. And only 0.1% of our waste went to landfill over the last 12 months. And in addition to that, our greenhouse gas emissions continue on a downward trend towards net zero. In terms of education, over 90% of our schools are rated either good or outstanding by Ofsted. Repeat child protection plans are in the middle of the target range. Short term bed use in adult adult social care is now the lowest since mid 2021, which has been a real focus of the service. And finally, the number of eligible people receiving NHS health checks continues to increase. Also included with a report in Appendix Two are the proposed KPIs and activity indicators for the current 2024-25 financial year that have been agreed between corporate directors and cabinet members for their respective areas. So just to return to my opening comments, the total number of KPIs which met target is the same as the last quarter, with one more KPI missing floor standard. There's an equal number of KPIs with a negative and a positive trend over the last six quarters. There were four AMBA rated KPIs that are very close or even on their floor standard, with two of these having a negative direction of travel, so needing close monitoring. Thank you very much.
• Thank you, Madam. Any colleagues have comments on this? Dylan, I saw you first.
• Yeah, obviously I'm only 10% of the cabinet, but I've got 30% of the red rags, so I don't know if I'm doing something right or something wrong here. Essentially, I mean, there was some good news in here, but there's also a realisation of why these things are happening. And I presented recently to governance and audit, and I just wanna highlight some of the things I actually said there as to what is happening. And it was really good because, for example, in FOI, we did a training session with members, which gave them a much greater understanding. They spent nearly two hours going through it in a lot more detail, as opposed to just looking at headline figures. Within FOI, obviously, it's a struggle. We keep having things come up. Thank you to my cabinet colleagues for things like the Herme Bay Active Travel Scheme, things like US accommodation, potholes, and other things that suddenly raise it hugely. Anything that's a news thing garners interest and people banging requests about all sorts of things. And unfortunately, they're not always the same requests. There's often little differences in them, which means very specific individual responses. In terms of the subject access request, which is very much going downwards, I think people need to realise what we're actually dealing with here. So over 80% are in children's. And if I can put it into context, if we receive an inquiry, say, for example, someone who was in the care of the local authority back in the '70s, we then have to go and trawl through some of our many archive boxes. Now, when you move house, if you think how many boxes you have, and I've moved a few times in my life, and I think I've still got some that are still unopened from about 15 years ago, well, we've got over 69,000 archive boxes at Kent County Council. And if you can imagine having to go through that lot to find the documentation, to then copy the documentation, to then redact the relevant parts, and then eventually get to the respondent with the information, making sure you've actually got all the information is an extremely onerous task. And that's one of the reasons for the delay in the process is that there was just so much data out there, and it's not in an easily accessible format for us to be able to just do it using technology or otherwise. In terms of, just going back to FOI, we were headed in the right direction, and indeed, we're up a percentage point, and it's hoped we'll get there again. But with all these things, whether it's subject access requests, whether it's FOI, the sheer increase in volume when we've still got the same level of resource makes it a really quite impossible task. And I just do pay tribute to the staff for dealing with that mountain of requests coming in, and still being able to smile cheerily every day and get on with the job. In terms of complaints, it's worth noting nearly a 10% increase in the number of complaints year on year. And so that the priority has been to work on some of the historic complaints rather than deal with new complaints, rather than go for the low-hanging fruit and therefore push it up quickly, get those dealt with, and then gradually the process should become better, and we should start moving in the right direction. But it is worth noting a 10% increase, again, with the same level of resource. So we are doing more for less. We're doing the best we can, and I hope that we do see improvements in the coming quarters.
• Thank you. And I suspect some of those areas are more intractable than others, which I think is the point we've often discussed, but we will need to come back to that, won't we? Thank you. Derek, I saw you next, and then Rory.
• Thank you, Roger. I just really wanted to pick up and highlight the great work that the KnowU '70 team are doing under Steve Grimshaw. This is an excellent example of how KCC is actually promoting the economy across the county and bringing back properties, both commercial and residential, which in turn then of course generates revenue through the taxes. But it's a fantastic scheme. It needs to be shouted from all the steeples, and just to give my acknowledgement to the hard work that the team are doing under very difficult circumstances. Thank you, Roger.
• Yep, and I think that's, I had the good fortune to visit a number of projects with Steve not very long ago, the last couple of months, and it's a remarkable piece of work. It's been going for a long time now, but continues to perform very strongly. Thank you, Rory.
• Yeah, thank you, leader. I thought Matt gave a very fair assessment of some of the background on two of the KPIs on the education portfolio. One of those was the proportion of educational health and care plans issued within 20 weeks. And what we're seeing, this was always going to be a difficult one to crack, but what we're now starting to see, because of the efforts that the team has directed towards those older cases, those for whom parents and children have been waiting the longest time, because we've been directing our work towards those, we're starting to reduce the length of time that the oldest cases have been around. So to go back to when we made the initial changes within the team in April, 2023, the oldest case was 119 weeks old. And that was something nobody was particularly proud of, but that was the position that we're at. A year later, after a massive change internally, after retraining our staff, reorganizing the way in which people are doing the work, we'd got that down just a little bit to 93 weeks. The really encouraging news today is that we're somewhere around 40, just over 40 weeks, 44 weeks, or thereabouts. And we're on target to getting the oldest case down to 40 weeks by the end of this month. And I think that's hugely encouraging. And what it shows is that we'll then be working on newer cases coming through with a significantly higher proportion of those being able to meet the time scales. And so it's looking behind the figures to see what the investment that we've made and the work that we've done will start then to bear fruit, and Matt highlighted that. The other point I thought of great significance that he raised was this issue about pupils with education, health, and care plans being placed in private schools or out of county special schools. And again, I think what this illustrates is the absolute importance of the reforms that we're making within the system. So things like the special schools review, it'll have its critics. It'll have critics who may be well placed, critics who don't want change, perhaps because they've got a particular interest in the area, perhaps because they don't want to see the system challenged because they've become comfortable with the way it is. But I'm afraid things have to change. And this figure, this KPI, emphasizes the importance of us continuing to make those changes. That's why we've gone out with the public consultation on the proposals for special schools, and it's why we have to keep going with that. And we will keep going with that, and that will be the key to getting some of these outstanding red KPIs. Back into the area where we want them. Thank you, Lida.
• Thank you very much, Rory. I've seen Sue's indicated. Case holding, special work case holding figures, which have improved a little. The report details some of the work that has gone on to do that, but that is a particularly welcome move, shall I say. And also to comment that the huge, there is a lot of work going on in the justice arena, which is perhaps not quite so evident in the report, but is recognizing some of the issues that there are in that particular part. But I also just wanted to pick up, as I always do, that the figures around the number of children we have in care remain considerably lower than many of our colleagues across the country. And that's a testament to the work that the teams of social workers and the early health workers are actually doing out there in the field to keep those children out of care. But Sarah, who's in the room, may wish to comment in a more detailed way about some of that.
• Thank you, Sue. Thank you very much. Sarah.
• Thank you, Roger. So just to pick up on the last point that Sue raised about the number of children in care, we have been for some time in that lower quartile of children per 10,000, but actually today we have 30 less children in care than we did this time last year. I'm not including our US children in that. So that relentless focus on making sure that children stay in their families, they stay there safely with the support that they need. Just two things I wanted to pick up. Firstly, in regards to the foster placements, and Matt quite rightly pointed to the provisions that we've had to make within our in-house fostering service for US children as a result of the High Court judgment. And it focuses very specifically on the absolute need now for us to progress with our plans to open our reception center and new children's homes, estates over the next four to six months. Because in doing that, what that will allow is the freeing up again of the in-house fostering resource. Having said that, as a local authority we are now part of the Southeast Fostering Hub Network. So one-stop shop for all interested parties across the Southeast. And we're very actively involved in that. And some other initiatives in terms of how we meet the needs of the most complex children, and particularly aligning ourselves up with health. Also with the Ministry of Justice. It's a very important piece of focus of our work. And then just again in terms of our social workers, we've expanded for September the number of frontline pods. So frontline being the initiative which recruits graduates for fast tracking into social work training. We've had one pod in the county to test out the methodology as well as our apprenticeships and our own in-house step up to social work. And we're now expanding that in September to a pod across each of the counties. So we know growing our own social workers is really key to keeping them. But that's part of the work that's been going on.
• Thank you very much Sarah. Neil.
• Thank you, Lida. I mean clearly as the figures show, there is a lot of work going out there. And much more to be done, that things are moving in the right direction. One thing I would like to highlight, because as was touched on during the presentation, the percentage of satisfied call as to Kent Highways 100 callback survey, which is now in the red. And of course in appendix two, we're being asked to remove that as an indicator for next year. Just wanted that we could have an outline of the thinking behind that. Because I think in terms of transparency, it's quite important that we stress we're not doing that purely because it's red to get rid of a red. Thank you.
• Thank you. Don't know who wants to come back on that. Simon.
• Yeah, I'll come back. It wasn't to remove it because we didn't like the KPI. It was to reallocate it into the new fault reporting tool. So it would be picked up as part of that new innovation for the service. Obviously what we've had in the last year is a number of significant events of high volume of activity. And as a consequence of that, it's called some of the callback services being a little bit under pressure. That's not that we haven't made the callbacks, 'cause we have. It's just within the period of time that we were looking for. And going forward, it's the improvement within the online reporting that will automate this and automatic process rather than one that's relied on human behavior. So I think it's a step in the right direction, but it's not removing an abdication of that responsibility by changing the KPIs.
• Yeah, thank you for that, Simon. I think it was worth clarity, not just for me to say that, otherwise I'd be accused of spinning it. What I will say, as Simon has touched on, I've got meetings coming up in the next couple of months about the fault reporting. And it is about making the ability to follow up what happens after a resident makes a report is gonna be key to that. Because it's crucial that residents feel they can raise concerns with us. It is beneficial for us. But I understand the frustration when people make reports. Then they either get a confused reply or no reply and don't know what's really happening. If we want people to come back and have faith in the system working, they do need to be kept updated along that journey of the report. So it will be rolled into that. And I think increasingly it will be beneficial to everyone and much easier to follow satisfaction in that way. So thank you.
• Thank you, yeah. And that satisfaction is something we've got in one form or another to ensure that we have a handle on. You were gonna come in again, Simon?
• Yeah, I was gonna say Mr. Baker's absolutely correct. I mean, that whole customer journey, so to speak, and keeping people involved through the process is something that we're working hard to try and improve. I think it's, we found certainly the historical fault reporting tool is a sort of almost feels like a once and done rather than a inclusive process. And that's really why we're trying to improve it.
• Thank you. Anyone else with any other comments on this?
• I think my own comment would simply be that we have, what we don't see in this is a significant deterioration. We did probably don't see a significant shift one way or the other, both if you look at red amber green or indeed direction of travel, it seems relatively stable. There are clearly, as the report points out, significant challenges still in areas which are under that financial and demand pressure. And that explains an awful lot of where we have got reds. That is in a sense, as you would expect, and unless and until we are able to manage our way through those more effectively, then it's gonna be very hard to avoid reds in that area. But I do think it's important that we, wherever possible, don't look to have things sitting in red forever and a day. Now, some of them have been there for a long time, but I think very important the point that Rory's made and indeed Matt touched on as well in relation to the EHCP direction of travel, because that is one which has been red for a very, very long time. But it's important that we do see first the backlog coming away and then that finally being demonstrated in the figures, hopefully second quarter onwards. And that I think is gonna be quite critical. And otherwise that we do demonstrate as we have and I think it came up very much in some of the responses on areas like social care and so on, the children's social care, the pathway we see to addressing some of those areas which are red, because otherwise there is no point in having a report of this kind if it doesn't result in action that brings about change. But as I say, we've always sought to constantly challenge ourselves as to what this report contains, make sure it does pick up the areas of stress as well as the areas where we are achieving things and very importantly goes on doing that. So Matt, thank you very much for what is always very clear report, as you've mentioned, we'll be taking it in slightly different form because of the point of comparison to the county council in a few weeks time. So cabinet is asked to note the quarter four performance report, the actions being taken to address areas where performance is not as targeted and the proposed indicators for 2024-25. Is that noted? Good, thank you. And with that, we can close our meeting. Thank you all very much. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]