Return to AgendaITEM CH3
children’s services SCRUTINY committee
MINUTES of the meeting held on 9 December 2008 commencing at 10.00 am and finishing at 1:15 pm.
Present:
Voting Members: Councillor Ann Bonner - in the chair
Councillor Marilyn Badcock Councillor Nick Carter Councillor Mrs Anda Fitzgerald-O’Connor Councillor Jean Fooks Councillor Pete Handley Councillor Steve Hayward Councillor David Nimmo-Smith Councillor Val Smith Councillor David Turner Councillor Carol Viney
Mrs Sue Matthew
By Invitation: Cabinet Member for Children, Young People & Families (Agenda Items 5 and 6); Cabinet Member for Schools Improvement (Agenda Item 5).
Carole Thomson – Oxfordshire Governors Association
Officers:
Whole of meeting: J. Dean (Corporate Core).
Part of meeting:
The Scrutiny Committee considered the matters, reports and recommendations contained or referred to in the agenda for the meeting and agreed as set out below. Copies of the agenda and reports are attached to the signed Minutes.
117/08 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND TEMPORARY APPOINTMENTS
Apologies for absence and temporary appointments were received as follows:
118/08 MINUTES
The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 28 October 2008 were approved and signed as a correct record, subject to the following:
· The deletion of Cllr Steve Hayward’s name from those present at the meeting; · The deletion of the words ‘parish council’ from line 3, paragraph 2, page 3, Minute 112/08; · The insertion of the phrase ‘team around the Child & Young Person Service (TACYP)’ after the word ’service’ in line 4, paragraph 1, page 7; · The alteration of paragraph 2, page 7, to read as follows:
‘Paul Sheffield, the Project Lead for this new intervention, commented that it should ensure that children will receive the services they need where this is longer than the six weeks intervention that PCAMHS can provide. He felt that the schools will be the primary responders to this service.’
· The deletion of the word ‘we’ from line 1 of the final paragraph on page 7 and its substitution by ‘PCAMHS’
119/08 SPEAKING TO OR PETITIONING THE COMMITTEE
The following requests to address the meeting had been agreed:-
120/08 SERVICE AND RESOURCE PLANNING 2009/10 – 2013/14 (Agenda item 5)
The report at CH5 was one in a series informing members on the service and resource planning process and budget issues for 2009/10 and the medium term and provides information that would lead to the Council agreeing a budget requirement and council tax for 2009/10 in February 2009.
The report included a series of schedules detailing proposed priorities, pressures, efficiencies and service reprioritisations for this scrutiny committee’s programme area. The current financial context for 2009/10 and the medium term had been also set out in the report against which the proposals needed to be considered.
The Committee were advised that comments from each scrutiny committee would be collated and fed back to the Cabinet by the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee which met on 15 January 2009. Members of the Committee were also advised that the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee, at its meeting on 26 November 2008, had agreed that, in order to relieve pressures across the total budget, to suggest to each scrutiny committee that:
(a) they look for reductions in net costs in each budget area of 1% to 2% through, for example, inflation/efficiency savings/delayed expenditure, which could achieve up to £3m total savings;
(b) they aim to reduce the engagement of agency and contract staff and consultants and consider replacing them with permanent staff where necessary;
(c) directorates should review project management arrangements to ensure that projects are within budget; and
(d) a robust review be conducted of all vacant posts.
In addition, Members were advised that the Corporate Governance Committee, at their meeting on 26 November, also decided that:
(a) a review be conducted into ‘one-off’ ICT investment at their 18 December 2008 meeting; and
(b) at their 15 January 2009 meeting, to:
(1) receive information about the number of consultants and the total consultancy budget; and look at ways of making savings by not using consultants and improving staff recruitment;
(2) consider a suggestion to bring in a consultant to look at the Council as a whole in order to achieve savings.
(1) The Scrutiny Committee were invited to consider and comment upon:
(a) the identified budget priorities and pressures and the choices as to how these could be funded for their programme area;
(b) how the target of savings for the programme area should be prioritised; and
(c) what further savings could be achieved to meet the overall funding gap currently being considered;
(2) The Committee may also wish to provide advice to the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee in relation to the money management service.
In relation to Annex 3, the Committee were advised to consider:
· whether it endorsed the proposed pressures and priorities;
· whether the savings proposed were acceptable; and what the priority for each one was;
· whether the imbalance should be funded by:
(a) additional savings from the directorate and stating how these would be met; and
(b) removing proposed priorities and pressures.
Members’ attention was drawn to the ‘Effective Budget Scrutiny’ guide which was part of the Scrutiny Handbook, as an aid to the scrutiny process.
The Cabinet Members for Children, Young People & Families, and Schools Improvement and the Director for Children, Young People & Families, together with Mike Simm and Andy Couldrick made themselves available to respond to questions from the Committee. Also present were financial officers Lorna Baxter and John Hickson from Corporate Core and Shared Services, respectively.
Councillor Bonner gave a brief resume of a discussion which had taken place the day before at a budget briefing session, the major highlights of which were: · The overall budget shortfall for the area could be buffered by assuming inflationary reductions of 2.5% to 2.0 for pay, and 2.0% to 1.0% for non pay. In addition to this, where contracts were in place, the 3.00% inflationary allowance would yield savings. It had been advised that the pay reduction was, however, a risk based decision as, if it came in higher, the impact would be significantly higher and could lead to service reductions; · In terms of other savings that might be offered up, the following had been highlighted: - the closure, renting out, or sale of one of the Directorate’s Outdoor Education Centres situated on the Gower Peninsular; - A one-off ICT saving; - The possibility of the Music Service raising their charges (this is not included within the budget for Social & Community Services) on the grounds that schools were gaining exceptional value for money from it; and that it could be linked in with the curriculum as an educational experience; - A possible need to go to the Cabinet for a call on reserves, for extra investment in assessment services as a result of a temporary increase in referrals due to the death of ‘Baby P’s’ and the Shannon Matthew’s case; · The reasons for the £304k deficit for Shared Services, when the reorganisation of budgets was expected to generate savings for the authority.
Discussion centred around the above points. In response to the latter query relating to the £304k deficit for Shared Services, Mr Simm informed members that a number of posts had been deleted as a result of the reorganisation and considerable savings had been made. As a consequence of this, together with that which was planned for the future, he assured the Committee that the Directorate would meet this requirement for Shared Services.
Following a full debate, the Committee AGREED to forward the following advice to the Cabinet via the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee:
(a) to endorse the proposed pressures and priorities, as set out in Annex 3 of the report,
(b) to endorse the proposed savings as set out in Annex 3, with the exception of those for the 3 Educational and 2 Social Work Apprenticeships; but to express the hope that all of the savings set out in Annex 3 will be achieved by reductions in inflation in relation to pay, non-pay and contracts;
(c) with regard to the saving offered up from the closure of one of the Outdoor Educational Centres, to request officers to look into the potential to maximise on revenue gained from any spare capacity the centres might yield, such as the commissioning of other educational/leisure/training courses.
In addition to the above, the Committee RECOMMENDED CABINET to note the increased level of referrals to Children’s Social Care in the aftermath of the Baby P case and to give very serious and urgent consideration to the following: · Allocating additional resources to Children’s Social Care in accordance with the outcomes of the review of front line practice currently being conducted; · Removing the requirements for children’s social care to carry forward an historic 5% vacancy factor. This Committee does not see such a vacancy factor as an efficiency saving and believes this to be an extremely high risk strategy in the present climate; and · To lobby local MPs to urge the Government to look again at the requirements of the Integrated Children’s System in light of concern expressed by officers about the significant amount of time (currently 60%) that was being spent by social workers at their desk operating the system; time which was taking them away from their work on the ground and was creating a serious impact on the service.
121/08 HOME - START (Agenda Item 6)
Members of the Committee had received representations from a member of the public, expressing concern about the future of the Home-start service within the county. The Chairman had duly agreed that the matter be included on the agenda for this meeting.
A briefing paper, produced by the Assistant Head of Service, Children & Families, Amanda Smith, setting out the context to recent discussions and correspondence about Home-start contracts with Oxfordshire County Council was before that Committee (CH6).
Prior to consideration of this matter, the Committee heard an address given by Deborah Hayter, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Home-start, Banbury & Chipping Norton, on behalf of all three schemes in Oxfordshire. She circulated a Briefing Note to all members to accompany her presentation and put forward the following views:
o The devolvement of all funding of children’s/family support to Children’s Centres would lead to the closure of Home-Start schemes, intentionally or not (the Banbury scheme was already at a minimum, Oxford had closed referrals and was already curtailing the service; and Southern Oxfordshire would be downsizing from April 2009); o Home-Start were not in competition with Children’s Centres, it was the families who received support that mattered. The logic of devolving decisions locally was understood. However, the attitude was that the potential loss of Home-Start would be merely ‘collateral damage in the restructuring/devolvement process’; o The loss would be significant for Oxfordshire. The County Council had contracted with Home-Start for more than 20 years and, as a result, 90 families had been supported per annum. In fact, over the last 5 years, Home-Start had supported 1575 families, 4074 children (of whom 222 were on the Child Protection register), which was more than 3 times than was contracted for; o In today’s climate, where abuse is very much in the media, It would be highly unlikely that abuse would be undetected when experienced and trained volunteers visit regularly, getting to know the families well. Home-Start’s aim was for early crisis prevention and the encouragement of positive outcomes; o Within that same 5 year period, 3 Home-Start schemes had attracted £846,521 of external funding from the Lottery and other sources. She added that, in her view, Lottery funding only went to organisations that could show good management, competent financial budgeting, careful monitoring and evaluation at every stage and good outcomes. Without some basic statutory funding it would be impossible to attract this extra funding; o Home-Start was a very cost-effective service, costing approximately £8.00 - £9.00 per hour for a volunteer to visit a family at home, compared with at least £18.00 for an outreach worker; o Oxford had a number of new Children’s Centres that were achieving their family support and outreach targets by making use of a service that had already been set up, was respected by referrers and had a proven track record in supporting families effectively; o Banbury had a number of Family Centres that had been established for some time and were now Children’s Centres. They had received no major increases in funding, with budgets that were already fully committed to existing services and staffing. All the Centres in Banbury recognised the value of Home-Start’s service in supporting and working with families externally, and bringing them into the Children’s Centres; o Children’s Centres are not, and could not, be the best or most suitable service for all families, but they work hard to increase their outreach. However, the Government’s 2007 paper ‘Aiming High for Children: Supporting Families’ identifies a number of potential barriers to the engagement of those most in need of support, including a ‘fear’ or mistrust of statutory services and concerns about the negative consequences of engaging; o There are still Health Visitors now working out of Children’s Centres who are still referring families to Home-Start; o All Home-Start volunteers work with families to encourage them to engage in children’s learning, to take advantage of Children’s Centres activities; and to participate in the wider community; o The Home-Start national body have informed us that only one other authority within the south east region have adopted the commissioning decision route: other counties have found it possible to continue to give funding directly to Home Start and others have put services out to tender, which we had been informed would happen in Oxfordshire; o Heads of Children’s Centres in Banbury had not been informed that if they did not fund Home-Start then the service would cease; o Home-Start could contribute to the Council achieving the LAA Improvement Targets for Oxfordshire 2008-2011; and could also assist to achieve the priorities for Year 2 of the Children & Young People’s Plan for Oxfordshire; o Home-Start would have appreciated it if their service-users had been consulted; and also if more information had been given about the bidding process. A longer time-frame with which to deal with the situation would have been appreciated too; and o Julia Gault, Head of Families Unit (DCSF) has stated that the creation of Children’s Centres should not result in the removal of funding from existing local voluntary groups who supply a good service.
Councillor Val Smith commented as follows:
· She was a supporter for the Children’s Centres and also recognised the importance of a good outreach service. In her view, Home-Start offered something which the Children’s Centres did not and she was concerned that it might disappear; · The early support that Home-Start gave families was invaluable to the family, as well as being an effective preventative measure in terms of combating future problems, which could prove to be very expensive for the County Council in the future; · Voluntary workers help to look after children whilst clients do their shopping, pay their bills etc. This, very inexpensive, but high quality service was delivered using professional, trained workers and was appreciated highly by the families concerned. She hoped that the Children’s Centres would work to retain it and that any repercussions as a result of its loss would be monitored; · Home-Start would require further time with which to bid for other contracts with other agencies
Cllr Chapman, Janet Tomlinson and Andy Couldrick reminded the Committee of the following:
· that the funding for such services, which was currently drawn from the centre, would in future be delegated to the Children’s Centres. Home-Start would then be at liberty to bid for the tender, alongside other organisations; · Any contract extension would require extra funding and a decision would have to be made as to where this money would come from; · This decision did not call into question the value for money or the quality of service given by Home-Start; · The Primary Care Trust had removed its funding from Home-Start in 2006 to accord with its policy of early intervention to meet the needs of children and young families across the county; · Children’s Centres had received total funding amounting to £4m in 2007 which would rise to £8.8m in 2010/11 as part of a drive to make them into hubs of support in communities. It was intended that staff in the centres would know the families and would work with Health professionals to identify those families who would benefit from the support that could be given by the Centres. Some Children’s Centres would be looking to commission this support from Home-Start; · Two of the Home-Start projects had been offered transitional funding for a period of one year to enable them to bid for other projects; · There were other voluntary organisations who would also wish to bid for tenders. According to EEU law, when any grant reaches a particular level, it becomes the subject of a competitive tendering process; · There are a wide range of potential users of services in different areas. Rose Hill clients do not require the same kinds of services as those in Henley. For this reason it is better to let local communities determine which services they need.
Members asked a number of questions of the Panel and these are included below, together with the response received:
Q Home-Start has a high record for their outreach work and for getting people into the Children’s Centres. Do we really think that what we are putting in place will be as successful at attracting people into the centres? Without their grant from this Council will it be difficult for them to attract other funding, in such a short timescale? R (Andy Couldrick) Patricia Gibson from the Community Team is monitoring the robustness of the changes in delivery.
(Patricia Gibson) We met in February with three of the Home-Start centres and the monitoring officers to clarify the decision to give two centres additional resources for 2009/09 at full contract value. This would allow all three centres to work closely with their local Children’s Centres to secure service level agreements. Home-Start was given a clear message at that point that services in Oxfordshire were changing to the locality model. They were also informed that the monitoring officers would be working closely with them to give them the support they needed. We then met with them in October at the time that the contracts were coming to an end. OCC committed to give them a payment for 2009/10 in recognition of the difficulties that two of the Home-Start Centres were having in making links with the Children’s Centres. They were well supported by the monitoring officers.
Q (To Andy Couldrick) Are you confident that you have sufficient money to provide services? R All we know is that the families need help and the new model gives us more opportunity to provide the services they need. It will give us a significant amount of extra funding, it will give localities the opportunity to make their own decisions, and it will benefit projects in the rural communities in a more positive way. I accept the point made about the excellent preventative work that Home-Start volunteers do, in particular in relation to the child protection systems. However, will there ever be enough work done in this area?
Q Why have the Oxford City Children’s Centres chosen to commission Home-Start services? R (Deborah Hayter) It was not a case of refusal on the part of the Banbury Children’s Centres to commission services from Home-Start. We have an office which is situated inside the one centre on Banbury. They had no extra funding with which to commission us.
(Andy Couldrick) Funding has increased year on year, and all centres have had to make decisions on what to prioritise locally. The services provided by Children’s Centres are very highly prescribed – it will therefore benefit every community if they have a centre in their midst.
Q It will be a shame if the Centres cannot capitalise on the volunteers, they are often undervalued. R (Cllr Chapman) The budgets have increased for the Centres and more funding will be delegated to outreach.
(Andy Couldrick) Many local authorities have developed good schemes involving volunteers and, moreover, they actively encourage volunteers to engage with the Children’s Centres.
Other comments made by members during the course of the discussion included the following:
· Some families will still value the initial contact with the volunteers, not wishing to go to the Children’s Centres; · The volunteers currently receive excellent training and are supported very well. At a minimal cost, ie. for an office and administrative staff, the Centres receive a very inexpensive service for the services that are provided; · The head teachers have expressed their wish to have Health outreach workers as well as those provided by the Children’s Centres; · It is a pity that the PCT is not contributing to support that the Children’s Centres give to the families.
Following a long debate the Committee thanked Deborah Hayter for attending the meeting and for her address. They also thanked the officers for their attendance and for their contribution.
The Committee were all in agreement that Home-Start had provided valued support to some vulnerable families with young children for a number of years. The service provided by their volunteers in particular was highly valued and appreciated. They understood, however, that the Council could no longer operate on a grant giving basis, due to European law. Instead the authority must specify the services they required and must seek tenders from organisations interested in providing the services. They stated their agreement also with the Council’s policy that decisions about the provision of support to families in a locality would be made locally.
In light of the above, therefore, they AGREED to:
(a) ADVISE the Cabinet member for Children & Families to encourage the Children’s Centres to think about commissioning the services offered by Home-Start as far as possible; and (b) REQUEST the Cabinet Member for Children & Families to convey the Committee’s appreciation to Home-Start and their volunteers for their highly valued service to vulnerable children and their families over the years.
122/08 TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY (Agenda Item 7)
Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) currently had a contract with Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust (ORH) for the provision of termination of pregnancy services. The ORH had sub-contracted the service to Marie Stopes International (MSI). The contract with MSI had no volume specification and ended in 2010.
In 2007-08, MSI had carried out 74% of the total number of terminations (TOP) for Oxfordshire. The service was provided in Reading and Ealing. The ORH, operated mainly at the John Radcliffe site and provided a service for the remaining 26% of patients. This consisted mainly for people under the age of 16 and women with associated co-morbidities.
Currently there was no consistent service provided in the north of the county. There was a service provided at the Horton Hospital site but this could be provided only when bed and theatre capacity was available. However, from January 2009, the ORH would be implementing a consistent service at the Horton. This would provide another option for women across the county enabling those in the Horton area to choose a service nearer to home.
Currently a full service review of the provision of TOP for Oxfordshire was being undertaken by the PCT. A Health Needs Analysis had been undertaken that would inform the work of the review group. Within this work the group would identify the current gaps in the service provision, review best practice and produce a draft strategy for future service provision.
It had been planned that the draft strategy would be reported to the PCT’s Clinical Executive in January 2009. Before that happened, it had been proposed that a joint working group, drawn from the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee and the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee should examine the draft strategy and produce a response that could be passed on to the Clinical Executive.
It had been suggested that there should be two volunteers from each of the Committees who would be able to participate in a discussion with PCT representatives. The aim would be to consider whether the service to be provided would be both equitable and suitable; and whether it would include proper provision of not just terminations, but also support/advice pre and post termination.
Roger Edwards, Scrutiny Review Officer was present at the meeting to respond to questions.
It was AGREED that
(a) Councillors Handley, Smith and Turner should form part of the Task Group looking into the provision of termination of pregnancy services; and (b) The Task Group should not lose sight of teenage pregnancy as an issue, particularly as this was the topic that had been included within its work programme.
123/08 SCRUTINY WORK PROGRAMME (Agenda Item 8)
Roger Edwards and members of the Panel updated the Committee on work in progress in relation to this Committee’s work programme. They reported that:
· The Panel had met three times and were making progress; · There were four areas of particular interest: - Leadership - The role of the School Governors - The Head Teacher’s Leadership skills; and - Senior Management; · The Panel were looking at 8 schools in total, 4 primary and 4 secondary including a city school and a rural one. They were also looking at those displaying best practice and those requiring more support. Councillors were encouraged to put forward suggestions and the reasons for them; and · The draft final report would be submitted to the 18 March meeting.
The Committee thanked Roger Edwards and the Panel members for their update on progress of the review and looked forward to receiving the draft report on 18 March 2009.
124/08 TRACKING SCRUTINY ITEMS (Agenda Item 9)
No action was reported.
125/08 FORWARD PLAN (Agenda Item 10)
No items were suggested.
................................................................................... in the Chair
Date of signing.................................................................. 2009
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