ITEM SH3SOCIAL & HEALTH CARE SCRUTINY COMMITTEE – 30 OCTOBER 2002Minutes of
the Meeting commencing at 10.00 am and finishing at 12.50 pm Present: Voting
Members: Councillor
Richard Farrell Other
Members in Attendance: Officers: Whole
of meeting: J.A. Dean and K. Coldwell (Chief Executive’s
Office).
The Scrutiny Committee considered the matters, reports and recommendations contained or referred to in the agenda for the meeting together with a schedule of agenda tabled at the meeting and AGREED as set out below. Copies of the agenda, reports and schedule are attached to the signed Minutes.
53/02. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND TEMPORARY APPOINTMENTS
Apologies for absence and temporary appointments were received as follows:
54/02. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
Councillor Christine Witcher declared a personal interest in relation to agenda item 5 on the grounds that she was the parent of a child with a disability and a non-executive director of the Oxfordshire Learning Disabilities Trust.
55/02. MINUTES
The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 25 September 2002 were approved and signed.
56/02. CHILDREN’S RESOURCE CENTRES
(Agenda Item 5) The Committee had before them a report (SH5) providing information about the consultation process regarding the proposed development of an extended partnership between the County Council, Barnardo’s and the Oxfordshire Learning Disability Trust, period ending (to 10 October 2002). The formal consultation had been extended to 21 October 2002 and accordingly the Committee also had before them a supplementary summary report which outlined additional information arising from the final 10 days of the consultation. The advice of this Committee had been sought prior to consideration of the reports by the Executive on 12 November 2002. The Executive member for Children & Families, Councillor Janet Godden, supported by the Director for Social & Health Care, Mr Hodgson and Ms Ainsworth, were present at the meeting in order to respond to members’ questions. Mr Hodgson was invited to present the report to the Committee. He began by amending the time of the 12 September meeting as stated in paragraph 15 of the report to 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm. Mr Hodgson informed the Committee that option 3 in the proposals had received widespread support from parents and agencies and option 4 had also received significant support. He pointed out that the proposed budgetary reductions to the service had generated a great deal of anger and frustration for the young people, staff, key organisations & for parents in particular. There had been a genuine and sincere request for the Council to look at whether it would be possible to modify those proposals. In addition they had requested more service, not less in the future. The young people concerned had been consulted in this process though not as widely as the Department would have wanted. However the young people themselves had indicated that they wanted more opportunity to mix with their peers. He added that although staff had expressed anxiety about the proposals, they had been very positive and keen to move on both from a personal point of view and also for the service users. Staff and partner agencies had been very supportive of option 3. He concluded by pointing out that a great deal of work had been undertaken to look at service issues and premises. Revenue funding would provide the services described in the report and capital receipts from the sale of Chilterns would provide the necessary capital to make the necessary adjustments to the buildings. In response to concerns from the Committee that 60% capacity for short-term respite care would be lost if the proposals were actioned, Mr Hodgson acknowledged that there would be an overall loss of bed spaces but was confident that available accommodation would be used more effectively. In response to concerns from the Committee that a proposal to phase out day services for respite centres had not been included in the consultation document, Mr Hodgson informed the Committee that given that it was only a proposal it had been difficult to know whether to go ahead and do the detailed work or whether to wait for the outcome of the consultation process. A service would have to be designed and decisions would have to be taken about deployment. If parents and users did not want 7 nights respite care and wanted day care, then the department must continue to look at day care in terms of service design. Currently 91 children were using respite centres; of that number, over 26 children were currently receiving day care. He added that the Council would respond flexibly to parents’ wishes and the responses from parents to date had indicated their desire for overnight respite care. Ms Ainsworth informed the Committee that the Council had been investigating increasing capacity for respite care through appropriate building design. Chilterns, for example, was unsuitable as it had only one play area which prohibited staff from grouping children separately. However, the proposals for the new extended partnership in option 3 would entail altering three buildings which could be designed to incorporate multiple play areas to enable different groups of children to play together. Furthermore, the Social Services Department were trying to develop different play strategies in the recognition that travelling long distances to day care services was not the best way of providing children with socialisation. Indeed, over half of the 25 or so children receiving services in Henley were actually closer to other centres, for example in Abingdon and Oxford. It was hoped that children who needed socialisation would be able to receive this locally although children who required overnight respite care would need to travel to separate centres depending on their particular care packages. By rationalising in this way children and families would get a better service. Ms Ainsworth further confirmed that day care would not be taken away from those children who needed it in the event that there was a transition to night care. Following a request from the Committee, officers undertook to provide members of the Committee with information on the distances which children who were reallocated to different centres would need to travel. Members of the Committee thanked the Social Services team for their hard work and sensitivity during the consultation process. In response to a question from the Committee on the level of unmet need within the county boundaries Mr Hodgson acknowledged that this was difficult to quantify. However, a survey had been undertaken by Alison Partridge over 2 years ago for the Joint Reference Group which had given a good overview of the needs of disabled children in the county in broad terms. Mr Hodgson further clarified that a resources panel had been established that looked at requests for services with the purpose of looking at the type of service needed, to ensure that what resources there were, were allocated on an equitable basis. At the request of the Committee, officers undertook to produce a report for the next meeting of the Committee stating the level of unmet need within the County boundaries. Councillor Hodgson proposed and Councillor Mackenzie seonded that a report should be prepared for the next meeting of the Executive on the advantages and consequences of keeping open the Children’s Centre in Henley. A vote was taken and was lost by 10 votes to 4. Councillor Law then proposed and was seconded by Councillor Legge that the Scrutiny Committee recommends the Executive to confirm proposals for changes to Children’s Disability Services as set out in the report submitted on 16 July. The Committee AGREED (nem con) to advise the Executive to confirm the proposals for changes to Children’s Disability Services as set out in the report dated 16 July.
57/02. MANAGING IMPROVEMENT THROUGH PARTNERSHIP : REVIEW BY DISTRICT AUDIT
(Agenda Item 6) The Committee had before them a report (SH6) by the Interim Director of Social Services which summarised the findings of the review of partnership working arrangements in the field of Social and Health Care which had been undertaken by District Audit, as part of their review programme arising from the 2001/02 Annual Audit Letter. At the request of the Committee, Councillor Janet Godden undertook to circulate copies of the progress report on Joint Working Arrangements Between Education and Social Services Departments which had been considered at the informal Executive meeting on 29 October 2002 to members of the Committee. The Committee AGREED:
58/02. 2002/03 BUDGET MONITORING – INFORMATION TO THE END OF AUGUST
(Agenda Item 7) The Committee had before them a copy of the budget monitoring report to the end of August (SH7), as presented to the Divisional Management Team and the Senior Management Team during the third and fourth weeks in September. The report was based on actual expenditure to the end of August and information on forecast year-end positions. The Committee AGREED to note the report.
59/02. PROPOSED FUTURE ARRANGEMENTS FOR HEALTH SCRUTINY IN OXFORDSHIRE
(Agenda Item 8) The Committee received a report from the Head of Scrutiny on the arrangements for the next seminar on Health Scrutiny to be held jointly with the Oxfordshire Community Health Council. This would be held on 21 November 2002 and would seek to address the relationship between Health Scrutiny and the emerging Patient and Public involvement in NHS structures. The Committee AGREED to note the report.
60/02. WORK PROGRAMME SCRUTINY REVIEWS
(Agenda Item 9)
At their meeting on 10 July 2002, the Committee agreed that the notes of the Scrutiny Co-ordinating Group be included as a standard item on future agendas for consideration and discussion. These are attached at SH9(a). The Committee noted the report and particularly that the Assistant Director (Children and Families) had undertaken to produce a report for the proposed Panel on the progress departments had made to date on actioning the Children's Rights Checklist.
Postcode Differentials Review The Committee received a verbal update from Mr Bramall, Scrutiny Review Officer who reported on the Postcode Differentials Review as follows:
It was agreed that a feedback form would be sent to all interviewees in order to ascertain their views on the process. Executive Commissioned Review on Bus Services reporting to the Environment Scrutiny Committee. The Committee noted that Councillor Ted Cooper was the observer from this Committee on the Bus Services Review.
At the meeting on 10 July 2002, the Committee agreed that the Chair, Deputy Chairman and Spokesperson for the third political group would meet to identify issues for possible future review prior to the next meeting of this Committee. No further issues were identified.
61/02. FORWARD PLAN
No items were identified for consideration at this stage.
At its meeting on 17 April 2002, it was reported to the Executive that the Children’s Society had decided to close its family centre in Bretch Hill by the summer of this year. This would have brought to an end a longstanding service level agreement with the Children’s Society, currently valued at £ 43,000 per annum, and opened up an opportunity to allocate the money to other family support services in Banbury and the county as a whole. The Executive resolved to instruct officers to:
The Committee had before them a report by the Acting Chief Education Officer (SH10(b)) which provided details on the outcomes of the review and made proposals for how the funding released by the closure might be re-allocated. Mr Sewell informed the Committee that since the report had been considered by the Executive, the Children’s Society had decided not to pull out entirely but to reduce their operations in the Banbury area. This had meant that they would maintain it as a community resource with sufficient staffing to supervise its use and to enable it to play a community development role on the Bretch Hill estate. However, this had not changed the status of the service level agreement, which would still come to an end in March 2003. The Scrutiny Committee AGREED to advise the Executive that they endorse the proposals for the re-allocation of funding released by the closure of the family centre in Bretch Hill as set out in the report to be submitted to the Executive on 12 November 2002.
in the Chair Date
of signing 2002
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