Agenda and minutes

We noted the appointment of County Councillor D. Blakebrough as Chair.

We appointed County Councillor L. Brown as Vice-Chair.

There were no declarations of Interest made by Members.

There were no members of the public present.

The minutes of the Adults Select Committee dated 19^th June 2018 were confirmed and signed by the Chair.

Context:

To scrutinise a draft policy for the use of Bed & Breakfast (B & B) for homeless purposes, which will provide a formalised framework within which to work.  Establishing a policy was a recommendation of the Committee on 20th March 2018.

Key Issues:

·         Under the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, the Council has a duty to respond to homelessness. The focus of the Act is homeless prevention.  However, where homelessness cannot be prevented the Council has other duties, including accommodation duties.  In the event of homelessness, the Act requires the Council to:

-       provide interim accommodation for applicants in priority need (S.68).  The definition of priority need includes families with children and 16/17 year olds.

-       help secure (this is not an absolute duty) accommodation and (S.73).

-       undertake a duty to secure accommodation for applicants in priority need (S.75).

·         Nevertheless, accessing an adequate supply of accommodation is an on-going challenge for the Council.  Not only is homeless accommodation itself in short supply together with social housing, but it is a small part of the wider Monmouthshire housing market, which also has an under-supply of affordable accommodation.  The rural nature of the County further compounds the situation.    

·         There are a number of challenges providing homeless accommodation.  This includes there being only one family hostel, which is in Monmouth, the private leasing scheme has contracted over recent years, private sector accommodation is difficult to access and Monmouthshire County Council accommodation is at capacity.  Also, there is a need to have regard to the Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) (Wales) Order 2015 and the Council needs to be mindful of safeguarding and community safety issues. 

·         On occasions, therefore, the use of B & B may be necessary.  This, however, is always an absolute last resort and if no other suitable accommodation can be sourced. 

·         The report proposes that the Council adopts a policy for the use of B & B.  The policy will provide a framework and standards within which the Council will work.  It also provides a basis against which the provision of B & B will be monitored. The policy particularly seeks to support the Council’s Safeguarding Policy.

·         Although it is proposed to establish a B & B policy, the on-going focus will continue to avoid the use of B & B and to seek to further strengthen homeless prevention and to identify additional forms of accommodation. 

Options Appraisal:

·         The following options are available:

-        Option 1 – Continue with the status quo and have no B & B policy in place.

-        Option 2 – Establish a B & B policy and take no further action.

-        Option 3 - Establish a B & B policy whilst also seeking to continue to strengthen homeless prevention and introduce new accommodation options, particularly a supported lodgings scheme, that will help to mitigate against B & B use.  Such schemes may not, however, provide provision for applicants assessed as unsuitable through risk assessment processes.

Member Scrutiny:

·         In response to a Member’s question regarding Option 3 of the options appraisal, it was noted that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Context:

To scrutinise the draft Housing Renewals Policy.

Key Issues:

·         There is a need to review and refresh the Council’s Housing Renewal Policy due to a variety of both financial and legislative changes.  In addition, a number of new initiatives have been introduced by Welsh Government to support and encourage the improvement of existing private sector housing, such as loan funding. The Policy effectively formalises existing practice.

·         In addition to service specific changes, there is a need to ensure the Policy is fully aligned with the Council’s Safeguarding Policy and therefore, is fit for purpose.

·         The Council decided over a decade ago that it could not continue to offer discretionary repairs and improvement grants. The main funding, has been £600,000 of capital to fund disabled facilities (DFG’s) and Safety at Home (SaH) grants.  Over time, the purchasing power of that sum declined and demand, though variable, increased both in quantity and complexity.  As adults live longer and wish to stay in their own homes for as long as possible and children with complex disabilities needed specialised facilities in their homes, the demand on the budget has increased. In 2016/17 the Council recognised this growth and raised the budget to £900,000.  This has helped to improve the average turnaround for DFG’s to 193 days.

·         A further recent development is that the Welsh Government has provided a three year funding stream under its ENABLE programme which has added approximately £100,000 to the resources available for disabled adaptations. The fund supports a flexible and responsive approach to delivering adaptations, particularly through partnership arrangements.

·         As well as the requirement to provide mandatory Disabled Facilities Grants and the discretionary, but highly valued,  Safety at Home Grants, the Council has also been able to process Welsh Government funds intended to help home owners carry out home improvements and to encourage owners of empty properties to bring them back into use.  The Committee considered a loans report on 19^th June 2018. The interest free loans are intended to support these initiatives and essentially mean the Council can offer financial support for private sector housing in absence of being able to provide discretionary renovation grants.  The expectation from Welsh Government is that these loans are promoted by the Council.  Take up to date has been limited, therefore, seeking to increase awareness is a key priority.

·         In addition to the financial support, the Housing Renewals Policy (HRP) also covers the housing standards enforcement work of the Council’s Environmental Health Service.  The service also inputs directly into the Home Improvement Loans (HILs) and Houses into Homes (H2H) schemes by ensuring that all Category 1 hazards to health are rectified as part of the scheme of work. 

Options Appraisal

The following options are available:

·         Option 1 – Continue with the existing housing renewal policy and make no changes.  The current policy is, however out of date and not fit for purpose.

·         Option 2 – Adopt the proposed policy in whole.

·         Option 3 – Adopt the proposed policy in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Context:

To scrutinise the progress being made with regards to homeless prevention and tackling homelessness.  The report highlighted performance and a small improvement in homeless prevention, current risks and actions being taken to improve performance. 

Key Issues:

Under the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, the Council has a duty to both respond to homelessness and to prevent homelessness.  The Act provides the power to discharge related duties into the private rented sector.  Strengthening prevention activity and identifying new housing options are on-going priorities for the Council and includes engaging with private landlords to increase access to private accommodation as a key mechanism for the Council to discharge its homeless duties, minimise over reliance on social housing and the need to utilise bed & breakfast.

Preventing and tackling homelessness in Monmouthshire has and continues to be extremely challenging.  The key reasons are the volume of homeless demand is high, compared with the availability of social housing, general demand for social housing is high, accessing the private rented sector is difficult and market rents are high. The rural nature of Monmouthshire further compounds the situation.

The Council, therefore, on an on-going basis continues to identify opportunities to strengthen homeless prevention and to improve services.  The Council’s performance is broadly consistent with last year, although homeless prevention levels improved to 61% in 2017/18 from 58% the previous year. 

The following are key steps, with the support of Welsh Government funding, that have been taken to strengthen prevention and increasing housing options. 

·         Appointed a temporary accommodation assistant to increase the management capacity of temporary accommodation, which supports homeless prevention.  The post also supports private landlords and the development of Monmouthshire Lettings (MLS) as a concept and brand, to increase access to private rented accommodation.

·         Further development of MLS including distinct branding and offering landlord incentives to encourage take up such as rent guarantees.

·         Appointed a specialist Young Persons Accommodation Officer in January 2018 and subsequently acquired Supporting People funding from April 2018.  In addition, Supporting People funding has also been secured to appoint a specialist Universal Credit Support Officer.  The additional funding increases the alignment of the Supporting People programme with homeless prevention.

·         Expanded the financial inclusion support through the transfer of two part-time Benefit Advisors from Social Care into the Housing Options Team.

·         Reviewed the approach to prison leavers and established a spot purchase arrangement with Cornerstone. A previous sub-regional arrangement was ineffective.

·         The private leasing scheme has transferred back to the Council, which will help to increase budget and management control.

The following are key risks going forward: 

·         On-going lack of social housing and the difficulty accessing private rented housing.

·         Due to the level of leased accommodation and the withdrawal of the temporary accommodation management fee in April 2017, there is a projected financial pressure of approximately £148,000 by April 2019.

·         Universal Credit Full Service commenced on 27^th June 2018.  A key feature is housing costs being paid directly to claimants.  There is a risk some households may experience difficulties managing their rent,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Context:

To scrutinise the 2017/18 performance information under the remit of Adults Select Committee, this includes:

·                Reporting back on how well the Authority did against the well-being objectives which the previous Council set for 2017/18.

·                2017/18 performance information on how the Authority performed against a range of nationally set measures used by all councils in Wales.

Key Issues:

·         In March 2017 full Council set Monmouthshire County Council’s well-being objectives for 2017/18. These objectives were set just prior to local government elections in May 2017, in order to meet the legislative requirement of approving and publishing Wellbeing Objectives by 31st March 2017. Given the timing of the publication, the latest available evidence from the Monmouthshire well-being assessment, as well as policy and legislation was used to set the Objectives.

·         The approval of the Corporate Plan ‘A Monmouthshire that works for everyone’ which sets five priority goals the Council will be working towards by 2022 supersedes the Council’s well-being objectives set in March 2017. Despite these objectives being superseded by the Corporate Plan it is important, and we have a duty, to report back on the progress made in 2017/18 against the well-being objective set in March 2017. This includes progress against areas of work related to the objective, an understanding of key performance information and future activity the Council has agreed as part of the Corporate Plan.  As well as being presented to select committees the objectives will be included alongside a fuller evaluation of the Council’s performance in 2017/18 that will be reported to Council in September 2018 and published by October 2018.

·         Performance data and information is essential to the performance framework to track and evaluate the progress being made. One important nationally set framework used to measure local authority performance is ‘Public Accountability Measures’ set by Data Cymru. Benchmarking data compared to other Councils in Wales will be published in August 2018.

·         Performance information for Adults Social Services from 2017/18 comprises of performance indicators from the new measurement framework introduced in 2016/17 as part of the Social Services and Well-being Act. The performance measures are a combination of quantitative data and qualitative data which includes asking people about their experience of social services and whether this has contributed to improving their well-being. This is provided for the information of the committee and has already been scrutinised by the committee as part of the Improving Outcomes, Improving Lives Corporate Director of Social Services Annual Report which was reported to a Joint Adults & Children and Young People Select Committee meeting in June 2018.

·         Future performance reporting will be based around monitoring and evaluating progress against the actions set in the Corporate Plan.

Member Scrutiny:

·         A succinct summary sheet at the beginning of future performance reports was required identifying where the authority is doing well, where it is not doing well and identifying areas that require further scrutiny.

·         For future performance reports percentage figures need also to have the cohort figure alongside it to provide context.

·         Appendix 3 provides technical  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Context:

To scrutinise the revenue and capital outturn position of the Authority at the end of reporting period 3 which represents the financial outturn position for the 2017/18 financial year.

Recommendations Proposed To Cabinet:

1.    That Members consider a net revenue outturn underspend of £653,000, an improvement of £694,000 on period 2 (month 7) outturn predictions.

2.    Members consider a capital outturn spend of £46.8 million against a revised budget of £47.2 million, after proposed slippage of £11.8 million, resulting in a net underspend of £395,000. 

3.    Considers the use of reserves proposed in paragraph 3.7.1 of the report.

4.    Supports the apportionment of general underspend in supplementing reserve levels as described in paragraph 3.7.3 of the report, below, i.e.:

Priority Investment Fund                            £155,000

            Capital Receipts Generation Reserve     £50,000

Balance Invest to Redesign Reserve       £448,000

            Total                                                               £653,000

5.    Members note that the low level of earmarked reserves will notably reduce the flexibility the Council has in meeting the challenges of scarce resources, going forward.

6.    Members note the extent of movements in individual school balances placing emphasis on schools to review the extent that recovery plans can be delivered over shortened timescales, and appreciate a net use of balances of only £94,000 instead of the original budgeted intention of schools to draw on balances by £877,000.

Member Scrutiny:

·         In response to a Member’s question regarding the cost to the Authority due to the recent harsh winter, the Assistant Head of Finance stated that this would have been part of a bid to Welsh Government in relation to a proportionate funding return.  Details would be sought and passed on to the Select Committee.

·         Our approach to adult social care is about care in the community and care at home.  It is welcome that our age of people going into residential care units is likely to be less than the Welsh average. However, this has implications getting to people’s homes during the winter and can be more onerous due to inclement weather conditions.

·         Monmouthshire’s costs for the additional gritting of roads at the end of March 2018 was over £400,000.  £33,000 was returned from Welsh Government.  The decision to allocate this funding was based on its RSG and capital funding programme.  Historically, Monmouthshire is the worst funded per capita via this method.  Any changes to the funding formula has to be by agreement of the 22 local authorities in Wales. The formula was established by the 22 local authorities.

·         The Assistant Head of Finance informed the Select Committee that the Welsh Government was intent to derive discretionary tax raising powers in the next 12 months. One of the issues being considered was the income tax consequence helping to afford social care.  A 1% increase to income tax levels would likely have a £200,000,000 effect in Wales which still would not be sufficient to satisfy all of the budget pressures.

·         Budget Planning for the Directorate has never failed to produce a surplus with good medium term financial planning being undertaken.

·         Capital slippage is  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

We received the list of actions that arose from the Adults Select Committee meeting on 19^th June 2018.  In doing so, the following points were noted:

·         County Councillors J. Pratt and L. Brown were working with the Corporate Director for Social Care Safeguarding & Health regarding the data security system regarding access to records of people aged over 18 in adult care and the Members will report back to the Select Committee regarding this matter. This item will be added to the Select Committee Work Programme.

·         A special meeting of the Adults Select Committee has been arranged to be held on 19^th July 2018 to meet with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board.

·         Supporting People Programme Grant - Service Update – The changes have been passed to the relevant officer to take forward.

·         Supporting People Programme Grant - Service Update – This report will be presented to the Children and Young People Select Committee in September 2018.

·         Private Sector Housing Loan Schemes - Change of Terms – The conclusions of the Select Committee have been passed on the relevant officer.

·         Crick Road Business Case – A report will be presented to the Select Committee in due course.

·         The Select Committee to remain focussed on domiciliary care (Turning the World Upside Down). Care Closer to Home will also be discussed with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board at the Special Meeting of the Select Committee on the 19^th July 2018.

We received the Adults Committee Forward Work Programme. In doing so, the following points were noted:

·         A Special Meeting of the Select Committee with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board will be held on 19^th July 2018 at 3.00pm with a pre-meeting being held at 2.15pm.  This meeting and the pre-meeting will be open to all Members to attend.

·         The Public Open Forum agenda item will be included on the agenda for the special meeting.

·         Items for discussion are:

-       The plans for Chepstow Hospital.

-       Older Adult Mental Health Services.

-       Carer Closer to Home.

We received the Council and Cabinet Business Forward Work Programme.

Special Meeting – 19^th July 2018 at 3.00pm.

Ordinary meeting – 11^th September 2018 at 10.00am.

Special Meeting – Adults Select Committee dated 19^th July 2018 at 10.00am.

Ordinary Meeting - Adults Select Committee dated 11^th September 2018 at 10.00am.