ITEM AS6(b)
SOCIAL & COMMUNITY SERVICES SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
Extract from Minutes of 3 December 2008 meeting
Scrutiny of the Council’s Money Management Service (discussed as part of its annual scrutiny of the budget)
Ms Blustin, Chair of the Oxfordshire County Older People’s Panel spoke in relation to the report on the County’s Money Management Service, making the following points:
· the Panel welcomed the scrutiny committee’s decision to request a report on this service; · it was particularly concerned about the pressures detailed in paragraphs 21 – 23 of the report, which included the waiting list for new allocations, the vacancies that were being held within the team in anticipation of the implementation of new practices and better management information, and the increase in work relating to clients who had a mental incapacity whose affairs were therefore administered under Deputyship from the Court of Protection; · it was concerned that cases were not getting the individual attention to detail expected, that some clients had been on the waiting list for between eight to ten months, that high priority cases were only normally allocated within three months and that there had been a significant increase in cases of financial abuse where adult safeguarding procedures had required the intervention of the Money Management team; · she was pleased to see that financial abuse was being recorded and looked for and expected, commenting that there would be an increase in the instances of financial abuse and in pressures on the service in future; and · she wished to urge the Committee to take a view on the staffing needs for the service to ensure that it was capable of providing the help needed, both in terms of existing pressures and the current economic climate.
Mr Collins then responded as follows:
· there was considerable change underway in the team at present which had resulted in many of the problems. The team had been required to reduce the staffing numbers by two posts in order to make savings as part of the business case associated with the team’s move to the Shared Services directorate and it was hard to find people with the sufficient skills and experience who could be recruited on a temporary basis; · the team had not been able to implement more efficient working practices and much of the team’s work was still manually driven. The new database would highlight all of a client’s payments that had not been accounted for, but at present this process involved a lengthy manual trawl and unauthorised payments might be missed. The new database would speed up the process and provide more accurate data. It would also ensure better prioritisation of clients and that money was going to clients; · any cases where it appeared that financial abuse was occurring were classified as ‘urgent’; · the longest time that any client had been waiting was a year; · ‘low priority’ cases were where the client was deemed to be in a safe environment with no financial abuse and not at risk; · it was hoped that the team would be able to stay on top of its workload following the implementation of the database, working closely with Care Management to ensure that all appropriate cases were fed through; · some people needed permanent help whilst others needed a package of care to get them through a crisis (eg substance abuse cases) and some people’s level of need would change over time; · the first training session for the database would take place this Thursday and the database would be tested after Christmas. It would then be loaded up with all of the data and would not be ‘live’ until April 2009. It would then be advisable to wait another six months to see how well the system was working and review it a year after that.
Mr Kearey stated that he had been asked to write a report for the Best Value & Audit Committee a few years ago to explain why the service existed. The general feeling was that it was part of a whole package of services that were provided to assist people. This service was not mandatory and people needing financial assistance could seek assistance from other sources, for example, from solicitors or bank managers. However, the directorate had chosen to offer this service.
The Director for Social & Community Services informed the Committee that Oxfordshire County Council spent more on its Money Management Service than most other local authorities that provided this service.
Members of the Committee asked a number of questions during this item. A selection of their questions, together with the officers’ responses, is listed below:
· Why had the Money Management Service been required to give up two members of staff as part of the move to Shared Services?
The business case had been based on the implementation of a series of more efficient working practices, including the implementation of a new client database, which would therefore require less staff. Officers had only just started looking at the implementation of the database when the move to Shared Services had taken place. Officers had to go through a tendering process to secure the right database and the database was bespoke as other local authorities had not experienced the same problems as occurred in Oxfordshire.
· Why was Oxfordshire’s Money Management Service dealing with more people than other local authorities?
Very few other local authorities were providing this service. It was a question of available resources and local authorities often had to decide whether to provide this service in place of other services. Many local authorities had been given no choice but to make significant cuts in their adult social care budgets. This authority had taken a Care Management perspective.
Ms Blustin was invited to contribute to the debate and commented that she was concerned regarding the “quasi-commercial” abuse of people who were being sold products that were supposed to help them but that had commercial links to companies.
The Director for Social & Community Services responded that this issue could be addressed by Trading Standards, as the perpetrators would be breaching the Financial Services Act. He urged Ms Blustin to continue to speak to the “normal channels” at the Council should she have any concerns. He added that there was a role for the directorate to provide sufficient information to people to enable them to make appropriate and informed choices.
Mr Kearey stated that a project between Trading Standards and the Money Management Service was investigating these types of issues.
The Committee then AGREED to advise the Cabinet via the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee regarding the Money Management Service as follows:
· this Committee wishes to bring it to the Cabinet’s attention that:
- there is likely to be increased demand on the Money Management Service in future, especially in light of the introduction of self directed support and the increased take up of direct payments; - the establishment figures for the team need to be reviewed to ensure that sufficient numbers of staff are provided to the service.
· this Committee wishes to review the operation of and waiting lists for the Money Management Service in six months’ time following the implementation of the new client database which is due to ‘go live’ in April 2009.
|