Agenda

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 9 December 2011 (SP3) and to receive information arising from them.

Members of the public may speak on a matter included on the agenda by giving notice to the Contact Officer by the deadline of 9.00 am on the morning before the meeting.

Advice on addressing a meeting can be found on the Council’s website.

A paper is attached at SP5a reminding the Commissioning Body of the requirements in the Memorandum of Understanding regarding the contents of the annual plan.

The Core Strategy Group at its meeting on 7 March 2012 discussed a draft Annual Plan 2012-13. Officers recommended a list of major projects for 2012-13 attached at SP5b.

These priorities were drawn from the Supporting People Strategy 2011-16 approved by the Commissioning Body on 17 June 2011 and the Delivery Plan 2012-16 considered by the officer group on 4 January 2012. The Delivery Plan 2012-16 is attached at SP5c for reference.   

Officers have also considered a budget showing the amount to be spent on each primary client group attached at SP5d. This budget is based on the financial strategy previously agreed by the Commissioning Body on 9 December 2011.

It is issued with two qualifications:

a)     Exact amount of the carry forward won’t be known until the administering authority has closed accounts for 2011-12 and, as importantly, confirmed that this carry forward has been approved. Necessary processes to achieve this aim have already started and the partners would be kept updated of the progress.

Key milestones are:

·        Approval at Directorate level – late April/May 2012

·        Approval by Cabinet – 19 June 2012

b)     Work on agreeing how additional savings will be allocated against budget lines for services for older people, those with learning disabilities and homeless people is continuing with named lead commissioners. Therefore in these cases it is not yet possible to split additional savings further. This will be done as soon as relevant decisions are taken and will be shown on future versions of the budget.         

The Core Strategy Group RECOMMENDS that the Commissioning Body approves the Supporting People Annual Plan 2012-13.

Delivery of the Supporting People Strategy 2011-16 and the Annual Plan 2012-13 is underpinned by two key administrative elements of the programme: the Eligibility Criteria and the Charging Policy. Both of these documents have been reviewed in 2012.   

The draft Eligibility Criteria were discussed by the Commissioning Body on 30 September 2011 where the members recommended further consultation on the document. The consultation period was from 24 October to 21 November 2011. Report containing summary responses and action taken is attached for information at SP 5e.

Post-consultation draft of the Eligibility Criteria was considered by the officers at their meeting on 1 February 2012 and is attached at SP 5f.

Revised version of the Charging Policy was discussed by the officers at their meeting on 7 March 2012 and is attached at SP 5g.

It contains two revisions:

·        Points 27 and 28 have been revised to refer to all applications for direct payments, not just those from leaseholders which was the case previously;

·        Review date has been set in three years’ time, in March 2015.  

The Core Strategy Group RECOMMENDS that the Commissioning Body approves the Supporting People Eligibility Criteria March 2012 and the Charging Policy March 2012.

The budget monitoring report for 2011-12 attached at SP6a shows the budget set by the Commissioning Body and expenditure incurred from April 2011 to February 2012 (eleven months of the year).  In-year cashable efficiencies agreed with providers have been processed in the final payment of the year. Effect of this exercise would be shown in March 2012 monitoring report.  

Report attached at SP6b is third and final report showing progress made with delivering the 2011-12 efficiency savings programme.  It shows that 2011-12 efficiency savings target has been exceeded by £57k or 18%. This shows combined effect of delivering one-off cashable efficiencies across a range of contracts and negotiating larger scale service changes in homeless and domestic violence provision.

Work on closing the accounts for 2011-12 has started and will be reported on in June 2012. The administering authority is expecting to close the budget with a relatively small under-spend and will be seeking permission to carry this amount forward to off-set committed spend in 2012-13.   

Report attached at SP7 provides the third progress update on this review. 

Work on most aspects of the review has been completed on time and informed key decisions taken by the partnership this year, including those on agenda for today.

A report attached at SP8a gives information about any items in the Annual Plan which the administering authority is not on track to deliver and a table is attached at SP8b showing progress against the Annual Plan.

At their meeting in March 2012 the Core Strategy Group members considered a report which analysed Oxfordshire performance in the first three quarters of this year.  This report is attached at SP9.

This information is presented using a traffic light system and is then used by contract officers to work with providers on sustaining good performance and improving less positive performance, and by commissioners to set performance targets for future years and services.