Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence from Members of the Committee.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 4 February 2020 and to receive information arising from them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 4 February 2020 were approved and signed with the addition of apologies from Councillor Charles Mathew.

10.10

Report by the Corporate Director for Customers and Organisational Development and Director for Finance

This report sets out Oxfordshire County Council's (OCC's) progress towards Corporate Plan priorities and provides an update on the delivery of the Medium Term Financial Plan, at 31 January 2020. A summary of overall performance and description of change is contained within the report. The report contains three annexes:

·         Annex A shows our current performance against targets and summarises progress towards overall outcomes set out in our Corporate Plan.

·         Annex B sets out the Leadership Risk Register which has been developed as part of the Council’s work to strengthen risk and opportunities management.

·         Annex C sets out the current financial position, providing detailed explanations of significant budget variations and an update on the Medium-Term Financial Plan including the delivery of savings agreed by Council in February 2019.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to note the report and consider any matters for future attention by the Committee.

Robin Rogers introduced the report.  The Chairman asked that the recommendation for this report, and future reports, be amended to include reference to the Committee’s role in bringing issues to the attention of the Cabinet.

Delayed Transfers of Care

Stephen Chandler described three main reasons for the lack of improvement in the situation.  He believed there was an over-reliance on bed-based support.  Oxfordshire has more people in hospital and care home beds than would be expected given the demographics.  The Council is working with clinical staff and social workers to ensure that the risks of hospital care as against home care are properly assessed, taking into account the negative impact that can result from long stays in hospital.

The second issue is that the HART reablement system has lower outcomes than are seen nationally.  A very high number of people are sent there for reablement and in some cases it may be inappropriate, for example those who really need end-of-life care.

The HART contract ends in September and work has started on recommissioning including visits to other parts of the country to study systems with good outcomes.  In the meantime, the Council is challenging the procedures surrounding discharges.

The availability of home care is the third issue.  Although the rate of pay is good, the workforce is simply not there with almost 100% employment in Oxfordshire.  The Council is switching to a strengths-based approach to ask people what they think they need themselves.  The hope is to avoid people receiving more support than they actually need.

The figures will not improve quickly.  Some improvement should be seen in six months or so but the new contract will not have a big impact until this time next year.

Stephen Chandler responded to Members’ questions as follows:

·         Not every care home will be capable of providing end-of-life care but the Council is willing to discuss this.

·         Even though the current system is not improving, the Council will continue to work with the trusts as it cannot afford to lose the skills and expertise that they have.

·         While there may be problems in the counting of cases and assigning responsibility, that does not change the overall picture.  The goal is to have people in the right place with the right care.  The Council will challenge every discharge plan to ensure that anyone who can go home with the right level of support can do so.

·         Improvements that should be seen in the next six months would be: getting people home quicker, fewer going through HART and more support from Age Concern to help people at home.

·         The new contract will insist on transparency in regard to the pay rates paid by providers.

·         The draft contract will be brought to the Committee for Members’ input.

Councillor Glynis Phillips urged that the new money coming into the NHS be invested in increasing clinical staff in the community to support the shift away from hospital beds to better care at home.

Covid-19

Stephen Chandler gave an  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16/20

10.40

Report by the Corporate Director for Customer and Organisational Development

This report asks members to consider the future need for the Sub-Committee given the repositioning of the Transformation Programme to include all change activity that the council is implementing.

The draft minutes of the most recent Sub-Committee meeting are attached.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to

a)            agree, in conjunction with the Audit & Governance Committee, that the work of the Transformation Sub-Committee is complete in having overseen the start-up phase of the council’s Transformation Programme and that future oversight now reverts back to its two parent committees; and

b)           consider on an ongoing basis which specific change activities it wishes to include on its forward plan.

The proposal that future oversight of matters that were part of the Transformation Programme should revert back to the two parent committees was agreed.  The implications of this to be discussed under the Work Programme item.

RESOLVED: to

a)           agree, in conjunction with the Audit & Governance Committee, that the work of the Transformation Sub-Committee is complete in having overseen the start-up phase of the council’s Transformation Programme and that future oversight now reverts back to its two parent committees; and

b)           consider on an ongoing basis which specific change activities it wishes to include on its forward plan.

11.00

Report by the Chief Fire Officer.

The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 requires the Secretary of State to prepare a Fire and Rescue National Framework to which Fire Authorities must have regard when discharging their functions. The 2018 Framework requires each Fire and Rescue Authority to produce a publicly available Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP). Within Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service (OFRS) we have called this our Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) to make it more meaningful to the public. In April 2017 OFRS published the CRMP 5 year strategy of Oxfordshire, this will cover the period from 2017 to 2022.

Each year the fire authority creates an action plan which proposes a number of new, or provides an update on existing projects to support the CRMP 5 year strategy. The 2020-21 Annual action plan provides an update of the 6 projects being conducted by the fire service in order to meet identified demands or risks.

As the projects within the 2020-21 CRMP are a continuation of those approved the previous year, no further public consultation was required, but was subjected to full internal and external consultation for a period of 12 weeks during 2018 for the initial proposals within the 2019-20 CRMP. Scrutiny is therefore invited to comment on the proposed action plan.

The following projects will be included within the fire authority’s CRMP for the fiscal year 2020-21:

• Project 1 - Risk profiling local communities.

• Project 2 - Prevention Review.

• Project 3 - On-Call retention review.

• Project 4 - Proactive Role in improving standards in rented housing.

• Project 5 - Establishing Community Safety Advocates or Wardens. 

• Project 6 - To increase the diversity of the Operational Workforce to reflect the community that we serve.

Our medium term financial plan and supporting business strategies underpin the proposals within our CRMP action plan.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to accept the projects and adopt in the final version of the CRMP Action Plan 2020-21.

Rob MacDougall and Don Crook introduced the report and responded to Members’ questions as follows:

·         The Fire Service will only respond to calls relating to people being locked in or out of buildings or cars in cases of emergency, such as a child being locked inside a house.

·         There were only a few incidents related to the recent flooding and figures would include all water rescues.

·         The service is developing a long-term property plan.  The risk profile has been completed.  It is accepted that some buildings are very old.  Crews have in some cases agreed to “spruce up” stations themselves.

·         Project 5 – Establishing Community Safety Advocates or Wardens is a pilot project in Henley.  There are other local projects such as ‘adopt of village’ in Banbury where members of the service attend parish council meetings for example.

·         With on-call staff it is understood that the first two years are crucial.  If they stay after that then they are likely to stay long-term.

·         A recruitment for whole-time staff will be launched on Monday.  It is hoped that this will improve diversity in the service.  There should be 12 to 16 apprentices in place by September.

·         The service in Banbury has been working with the local mosque including holding a have-a-go day there.  As a consequence, issues of specific concern to the Muslim community that may act as a barrier to recruitment have been identified.  Facial hair is also an issue with breathing apparatus and the service is talking to manufacturers about this.

·         The annual report will include recruitment data, an update on the Henley pilot and a report on the volunteer coordinator role.

Members thanked the officers for their work on behalf of residents.

RESOLVED: to accept the projects and adopt in the final version of the CRMP Action Plan 2020-21.

11.45

To receive a verbal update from the Corporate Director Adult Social Care in relation to Milton Heights Care Home.

Andrew Colling gave a verbal update.  There are 14 users of the residential service and 72 users of the day service.  Most are Oxfordshire residents but some come from outside.  Hft gave notice to close at the end of March.  That has been pushed back a little but alternative services must be found by 13 April.  The day service will continue until 31 May.

A project group was set up and assessed everyone in the residential service and has identified alternatives for all but one user.  All those using the day service have been contacted and all have made alternative arrangements.

For others with families the Council is confident the target date will be met.  There is a strong support group which met on 14 February.

Councillor Jenny Hannaby stated that the situation was very upsetting.  Some service users had been there 25 years.  She confirmed that parents were pleased with the Council’s involvement and with the alternative arrangements made.  There were still some monetary issues to be resolved but staff had worked very hard on this.

Councillor Mike Fox-Davies expressed disappointment that he had not been informed by the Council although his division was affected.  Andrew Colling accepted that there had been a delay in that.

The Chairman thanked staff for their work on this matter.

12.00

To agree the Committee’s work programme for future meetings based on key priorities and discussion in the meeting.

The following changes were agreed to the Work Programme:

14 May 2020

Safeguarding Missing Children

Educational Health and Care Plans

Commercial Development, Assets and Investment

Workforce – capacity and recruitment

IT Strategy

This meeting may need to continue into the afternoon.

9 July 2020

Oxfordshire Local Transport and Connectivity Plan including NO2 emissions

Housing Delivery

Use of S106 monies.

10 September 2020

Children’s Services