Agenda item

1010

Head of Policy, Maggie Scott, will present a paper outlining the Council’s performance for the first quarter of 2015/16. Director of Adult Social Services, John Jacksonwill be present to allow for a focused performance discussion on key areas of concern.

Head of Policy, Maggie Scott, presented a paper outlining the Council’s performance for the first quarter of 2015/16. Director of Adult Social Services, John Jackson, Seona Douglas, Deputy Director Adult Social Care, together with Councillor Judith Heathcoat, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care  was present to allow for a focused performance discussion on key areas of concern in adult social care.

Generally members commended the work being done in the face of a difficult financial position. The Committee made a number of specific requests for additional information and/or further consideration.

Children Education & Families

During discussion members sought additional information on the following topics:

·       The numbers of children in any kind of care and a breakdown by type of care?

·       Information on nurseries failing inspections and what funding they receive.

·       Information on what happens to children once they are excluded? In particular members requested information on hub involvement by individual hubs in order to understand the activity they undertook.

·       Members found the rise in caseloads worrying and wished to consider this matter in detail with the Director at a future meeting

·       Members also sought information on placements outside county in order to understand the effectiveness of the strategy and the cost of additional placements.

·       With reference to para 21 of the report members queried how the figures represented improvement for the children concerned as set out in last sentence of the para.

It was AGREED that where information was readily available this should be circulated in advance of next meeting and that otherwise responses should form part of the next Children, Education & Family focus by this committee..

Environment & Economy

During discussion members requested an updated position statement on financial position/savings. There was some discussion of capital receipts from property assets and it was AGREED that it be a focus of a future Environment & Economy focus. It was suggested that it would be useful to have some input from Income Generation CAG. Maggie Scott referred to an existing briefing note and undertook to share that with Members if possible.

There was discussion of the incinerator at Ardley and it was AGREED that a short briefing be prepared clarifying some of the issues around its use and the impact on budgets.

Public Health

There was discussion on the quit smoking programme and Councillor Gray as Chairman of Education Scrutiny Committee agreed to consider if that Committee should look into what schools were doing around advice on quitting.

Trading Standards

There was a request from an individual member for a performance indicator around weight limit enforcement.

Adult Social Care

There was lengthy discussion of the performance figures during which John Jackson set out the national context. He commented that adult social care and children, education & families were the only directorates that had national guidelines about the information collected on performance. There was a great deal of information collected that was not reported to committee where the focus was on matters of concern. It was therefore important to recognise that overall Oxfordshire was in the top quartile nationally. He added that in the nationally required survey of service users the vast majority were satisfied or better.

There followed discussion of the three main areas of concern: delayed transfers of care; reablement and home care. John Jackson set out the issues and detailed actions being taken to address them. Members highlighted concerns over funding, sustainability of resources and recruitment and retention of a skilled workforce.

The Chairman encouraged councillors to lobby local MP’s over funding/sustainability issues.