Agenda and minutes

Councillor Dave Sexon in place of Councillor Dr Peter Skolar.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 2 December 2009 (AS3) and to note for information any matters arising on them.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 2 December 2009 were approved and signed.

The Committee AGREED to vary the order of business as indicated in these Minutes.

12:30

Contact Officer: Alan Sinclair, Programme Director – Transforming Adult Social Care, (01865) 323665

It has been agreed that a report on transforming Adult Social Care will be brought to every meeting of this Committee (AS8) and will include detail on self directed support.

The Cabinet Member for Adult Services and Mr Sinclair will attend to answer any questions the Committee may wish to ask.

The Committee is invited to track progress and conduct a question and answer session.

It had been agreed that a report on Transforming Adult Social Care (TASC) would be brought to every meeting of this Committee and would include detail on self directed support.

The Committee had before it a progress update in relation to TASC (AS8), together with the Putting People First Milestone Self Improvement Framework (Oxfordshire’s first quarterly report to the end of December 2009 on progress against the government’s high level measures and milestones which need to be achieved over the next 18 months and which will be reported on a quarterly basis to the Department of Health for all Councils) (Annex 1) and the Programme Definition Document for Transforming Adult Social Care with an updated risk register (Annex 2).

The Cabinet Member for Adult Services, together with Mr Alan Sinclair (Programme Director – Transforming Adult Social Care) and Mr Steve Thomas (Performance Information Manager) attended for this item in order to answer Members’ questions.

Mr Sinclair summarised progress in relation to TASC as set out in report AS8, reporting as follows:

·        in relation to the need to better involve and engage with the Districts and the City Council, there was a need for more information on TASC to be provided by the City Council and he would be attending a meeting of the City Council’s scrutiny committee that evening;

·        although there was already much work underway in relation to the financial systems needed to support the delivery of personal budgets, more was needed to be done as the systems were not yet in place. Plans were in place to do this but they needed to be implemented;

·        three hundred people had now been allocated a personal budget;

·        the programme would be going into delivery stage this year (all new service users to have a personal budget by October 2010) and his concern was to ensure that the system was sustainable for the future in terms of local commissioning. Altering commissioning and contracting arrangements to enable providers to offer choice and flexibility had been limited to date in relation to older people and people with physical disabilities. In relation to the extent to which users, carers, providers and third sectors had been involved in developing the commissioning strategy, the involvement of service users was more developed in learning disabilities and mental health and was beginningto happen for older people and people with a physical disability. Officers were currently working on the strategy for people with a physical disability;

·        officers had now gone out for an expression of interest for brokerage;

·        the Resource Allocation would be discussed at a Workshop to be held in March;

·        the future of the community building aspect of the programme would be discussed by the end of March;

·        there was only a year’s funding left for TASC so officers were looking at what they needed to be prioritising, for example, by looking at what they could do in relation to community building, promoting independence and prevention in the last year of the programme.

A selection of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 44/10

11:00

Contact Officer: Steve Thomas, Performance Information Manager, (01865) 323609

The 2008/09 report for Oxfordshire is attached at Annex 1 to report AS6.

The Cabinet considered this report on 19 January where it agreed to:

a)                 Receive the report;

b)                 Review progress on the areas for development through the quarterly monitoring of the directorate balanced scorecard.

The Committee will have the opportunity to question the Cabinet Member for Adult Services, together with the Director for Social & Community Services and Mr Thomas (Performance Information Manager - Social & Community Services).

The Committee is invited to conduct a question and answer session.

(Agenda No. 6)

The 2008/09 report for Oxfordshire was before the Committee (Annex 1 to reportAS6).

The Directorate had been judged as ‘performing well’, as had 108 of the 148 authorities nationally and 18 of the 19 authorities in the South East. One third of all local authorities had been given a rating of ‘adequate’ in relation to maintaining personal dignity and respect, as had Oxfordshire.

Eleven areas for improvement had been identified, which was a similar number of areas to those flagged up in previous years.

The Cabinet had considered this report on 19 January and had agreed to review progress on the areas for development through the quarterly monitoring of the directorate balanced scorecard.

The Cabinet Member for Adult Services, together with the Director for Social & Community Services, Mr Paul Purnell (Head of Social Care for Adults), Mr Steve Thomas (Performance Information Manager - Social & Community Services) and Mr Hugh Ellis (Safeguarding Adults Manager) attended before the Committee in order to answer Members’ questions.

The Committee conducted a question and answer session. A selection of the Committee’s questions, together with the officers’ responses, is listed below:

·          The Care Quality Commission (CQC) had stated ‘the report acknowledges an improving picture of performance in safeguarding adults in Oxfordshire, with some areas of positive performance and a clear commitment to further raising of standards’. Was this a fair summary? Had the Inspectors been looking at the possibility of things going wrong or things that had gone wrong?

The Inspectors had been given a hundred referrals from the previous year. From this, they had chosen eight cases to read in detail and had interviewed staff and clients and had held group interviews. The Inspectors had wanted to look at how well the cases had been dealt with and to assess whether they thought that the situation would improve. Their judgement had been that the arrangements were adequate, but that there were promising prospects for improvement. Standards were understandably very high in this category and only one local authority had been given a rating of ‘excellent’.

·          Why wasn’t a rating of ‘adequate’ ok for safeguarding, given the County Council’s financial situation?

This was a question to put to the regulator. A rating of ‘adequate’ was a reasonable benchmark. A rating of ‘performing well’ meant that an authority had added value and done extra work. Pursuing a score of ‘performing excellently’ was not that relevant to service users. Service users needed to know that the Directorate was doing well and therefore the Directorate was aiming for a future score of ‘performing well’ in terms of safeguarding.

·          How much would it cost to get from ‘performing adequately’ to ‘performing well’? Was money being spent wisely?  Would the Directorate be spending money to get a better performance rating when money would be best spent elsewhere?

Safeguarding was a national priority and was much higher on the agenda than it had been in previous years. Officers had looked for strengths and weaknesses in their existing services  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45/10

11:30

Contact Officer:  John Jackson, Director for Social & Community Services, (01865) 323574

The Director for Social & Community Services, together with Mr Alan Webb (Director of Commissioning – Oxfordshire PCT) will attend for this item.

Two papers are attached for the Committee’s consideration:

·        The Development and Implementation of the Ageing Successfully Strategy (AS7(a)).

·        Partnership working with the NHS – Creating a Healthy Oxfordshire Programme (AS7(b)).

The Committee is invited to conduct a question and answer session.

The Cabinet Member for Adult Services, together with the Director for Social & Community Services, Mr Paul Purnell (Head of Adult Social Care) and Mr Alan Webb (Director of Commissioning – Oxfordshire PCT) attended before the Committee in order to answer Members’ questions.

The Committee had before it two papers:

·        The Development and Implementation of the Ageing Successfully Strategy (AS7(a));

·        Partnership Working with the NHS – Creating a Healthy Oxfordshire Programme (AS7(b)).

Report AS7(a) set out the overall vision, aims and objectives of the Ageing Successfully Strategy, which the County Council’s Social & Community Services and Oxfordshire PCT were developing together and implementing with the involvement of the District and City Councils and the voluntary and independent sectors.

The strategy was being prepared because at present the statutory agencies in Oxfordshire did not have an agreed, robust and overarching vision of what services for older people in the County should be, nor what the priorities, objectives, vision and underlying principles were. This had led to a lack of clarity and focus for the provision and development of services. There had not been a clear enough framework within which the voluntary, independent and for profit sectors could develop their own services, confident in their understanding of what service commissioners wished to see. It had also hampered the involvement of service users and carers in the development and delivery of services.

The Strategy would give the basis for a thorough review of the current pooled budget arrangements and integrated commissioning would be based on outcomes. Integrated commissioning was about improved efficiencies and improved services. For example, it was not good practice for people to be seen twice in order to receive services.

Mr Webb stated that integrated commissioning and pooled budgets was the way forward but was quite challenging for Health as Health did not always commission by defined areas of the population. The area of older people cut across commissioning for a number of services such as acute services, accident and emergency and out of hours, as well as services for people with long term conditions such as chronic breathing disorders and other conditions that mainly affected older people. This was the direction of travel and officers were currently working on how to get there. A workshop on integrated working would be held that afternoon.

In relation to paper AS7(b), Members noted that the proposed work streams which were of most relevance to this Committee were integrated commissioning, integrated community services provision and patient responsibility and engagement. 

10:15

Contact Officer: Lisa Gregory, Taking Part Team Manager, (01865) 323605

This Committee has agreed as part of its scrutiny work programme that it wishes to look at the new statutory duty to involve, which will affect all parts of local government, not just Social & Community Services.

Ms Gregory (Taking Part Team Manager), together with Ms Carole Stow (Consultation and Involvement Manager) will attend for this item in order to provide information to the Committee on what this new duty involves and what the Directorate will be doing in response to this, and to answer the Committee’s questions.

A report is attached atAS5.  

The Committee is invited to conduct a question and answer session.

This Committee had agreed as part of its scrutiny work programme that it wished to look at the new statutory duty to involve, which will affect all parts of local government, not just Social & Community Services.

Ms Gregory (Taking Part Team Manager), together with Mrs Carole Stow (Consultation and Involvement Manager) attended before the Committee in order to provide Members with information on what this new duty involved and what the Directorate would be doing in response to this, and to answer the Committee’s questions.

Mrs Anita Higham and Mr Dermot Roaf (Oxfordshire LINk), together with Mr Adrian Chant (LINks Locality Manager – Help and Care) also attended before the Committee.

The paper before the Committee (AS5) set out the background and key issues associated with the Duty to Involve, the arrangements in place to support the Council to meet its statutory obligations; and in particular how Adult Services was meeting its statutory obligations.

Mrs Stow reported that the duty came into force on 1 April 2009 under section 138 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health (LGPIH) Act 2007. Its aim is to embed a culture of engagement across local government and it requires the Council to take steps to involve representatives of local persons in the exercise of the Council’s functions where it is considered to be appropriate. However, the Council had long recognised the benefits of involving service users and the ethos of the duty already underpinned the Council’s strategic frameworks and was integral to its corporate plans, strategies and processes. Mrs Stow further reported that as the County Council’s Consultation and Involvement Manager she had the strategic overview of all of the Directorates and each Directorate has nominated an officer responsible for have an oversight of consultation and involvement activities in relation to that Directorate. Information resulting from consultation activities was then fed to her to enable her to share widely.

Ms Gregory reported that the Taking Part Team existed to support staff and enable them to strengthen service user involvement, for example, by providing examples of best practice. She added that it was very easy to get involvement wrong and therefore it required specialist knowledge to get it right. Involving service users at an early stage resulted in better services and happier service users. Although consultation had been undertaken in Social & Community Services for many years it was now co-ordinated centrally to ensure that work was not replicated across Directorates.

In relation to a Member’s question, Ms Gregory responded that she managed the Oxfordshire LINk contract, as LINks were part of the wider duty to involve. The Team might flag up an area of interest to them, but as LINks were independent of the Council it would not be appropriate to instruct or request them to carry out any activities.

Mrs Higham stated that her task was to implement the legislation with regard to the Oxfordshire LINk. She added that the Duty to Involve enshrined the principle that the public  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47/10

12:50

Contact Officer: Julian Hehir, Scrutiny Review Officer, (01865) 815982

[Task Group comprises Councillors J. Hannaby, S. Hutchinson &  L. Sanders]

The Committee is invited to receive an update on the work of the Group.

It was AGREED that an update would be given to the Committee’s next meeting.

13:20

The Committee is asked to note any items for possible consideration.

The current version of the Forward Plan covers February to May 2010.

No items were identified for consideration.

Councillor Larry Sanders reported that Essex County Council had gone into partnership with the Relatives and Residents Association to go into old people’s homes and to encourage them to set up Relatives and Residents Associations. He undertook to find information that had been published on the project and provide a copy to Councillor Seale.

INFORMATION SHARE

Mrs Anita Higham (Oxfordshire LINk elected member) attended before the Committee, together with Mr Dermot Roaf (Chairman of the LINk Stewardship Group) and Mr Adrian Chant (Locality Manager – Oxfordshire LINk).

The Committee had before it an update on the work of the Oxfordshire Local Involvement Network (LINk).

The Committee noted that work was underway to publicise the Oxfordshire LINk more widely and that more issues would subsequently be added to the LINK’s work programme. All GP surgeries had already been sent letters.

The Committee thanked Mrs Higham, Mr Roaf and Mr Chant for their input, and noted that the LINk’s report into self directed support would be considered at this Committee’s September meeting following consideration by the Director for Social & Community Services.