Agenda and minutes

County Councillor P. Pavia declared a personal, non-prejudicial interest as Research and Policy Lead, ADSS Cymru.

Mr. P. Farley, Chair of  Chepstow Senior Citizens Welfare Trust was present in connection with agenda item 7 “Cabinet Member’s Draft Response to Aneurin Bevan University Health Board Consultation on Older Adult Mental Health Services.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 30^th October 2017 were confirmed and signed as a true record.

Context:

·         To highlight the context within which the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) will be developed for 2018/19 to 2021/22.

·         To agree the assumptions to be used to update the MTFP, and provide an early indication of the level of budget savings still to be found.

·         To receive an update with the implications arising out of the provisional

            settlement announcement of Welsh Government.

·         To consider the 2018/19 budget within the context of the four year Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) to be incorporated within the emergent Corporate Plan.

·         To receive detailed draft proposals on the budget savings required to meet the gap between available resources and need to spend in 2018/19.

Key Issues:

The Select Committee scrutinised the Social Care, Health and Safeguarding budget proposals, as outlined in the report, which related to the Social Care, Health and Safeguarding Directorate Budget.

Member Scrutiny

The report was introduced by the Finance Manager, noting that since the report was initially scheduled for consideration, final settlements have been announced.  Members were informed that this and a Joint Select Committee, were opportunities to put forward ideas to alter the proposed budget. Questions were invited as follows:

A Member remarked on the increase to Council Tax of 4.95% and questioned if that proposal would remain as the final settlement was slightly better than expected.   It was confirmed that this was the case to ensure the budget gap did not increase e.g. there was no addition to the settlement to cover the public sector pay increase.

The Chair asked if there was any possibility of exceeding 4.95% and it was responded that there were no proposals to do so.  Elected Members were informed that English counties can set a higher precept as they have an adults’ social care precept specifically for social care but that doesn’t apply in Wales.  It was explained that Council Tax is not the main source of income for the authority and that the bulk comes from the Welsh Government settlement.  The impact of the Police precept was queried but it was confirmed that the authority just collects and pays the precept to the Police and town/community councils. 

It was confirmed that work will now take place to see how the Council can bridge the funding gap; task groups will look at alternatives. The Chair asked when it will be known if and when the gap is fixed. It was confirmed that this information will be available in February.  Members were reminded that 1% increase in Council Tax raises roughly £300,000.

A Member provided information that the final Welsh Government budget will not be finalised until next week so some changes may still occur.  It was queried what impact the pay award would have locally in terms of the fragility of the local independent market.  It was agreed that it is a burden but the increase to the Living Wage is welcomed in the care market as investment is needed to ensure an appropriate workforce. Discussions are in progress about the viability  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Context:

To scrutinise the proposed capital budget for 2018/19 and the indicative capital budgets for the three years 2019/20 to 2021/22.

Key Issues:

Capital Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) issues:

• The four year capital programme is reviewed annually and updated to take account of any new information that is relevant.
• The major component of the Capital MTFP for the next few years is completion of the Council’s Tranche A Future schools programme.  Colleagues are working through options in relation to a future Welsh Government Tranche B programme.  No presumption has been made to add such costs into this next four year window as yet, as costs of proposals and their affordability are still to be established.
• As part of the 2017/18 budget setting process, Members identified five additional priorities that had not been costed at the time of budget setting, but for which they added an un-hypothecated borrowing assumption of £500,000 per annum to the 2017/18 budget.
• During this year, some of those scheme costs have crystalised and the following indicates the related presumption within the capital programme together with an indication of the revenue consequences.  In all cases an asset life of 25 years has been presumed:

-       Monmouth Pool – commitment to re-provide the pool in Monmouth as a consequence of the Future Schools Programme,  £7.3 million project afforded by £1.9 million Future Schools Programme, £985,000 Section 106 funding, core treasury funding in the region of £835,000, and £3.58 million prudential borrowing afforded by the Leisure Service through additional income predictions.

-       Abergavenny Hub – commitment to re-provide the library with the One Stop Shop in Abergavenny to conclude the creation of a Hub in each of the towns.  £2.3 million.

-       Disabled Facilities Grants – the demand for grants is currently outstripping the budget, work is being undertaken to assess the level of investment required to maximize the impact and benefit for recipients.  Members ultimately chose to put a one year commitment of £300,000 into the base capital programme in 2017/18.

-       City Deal - 10 Authorities in the Cardiff City region are looking at a potential £1.2 billion City Deal. Agreement to commit to this programme is being sought across the region in January 2018 and would impact on the capital MTFP. The potential impact on individual authority budgets is currently being modelled in advance of decisions on specific projects and profiles in order for authorities to start reflecting the commitment in their MTFPs.  The potential is for the 10 authorities to provide collectively £120 million over time, with individual contributions being reflective of populations.  Monmouthshire’s indicative liability during the forthcoming capital MTFP is likely to be:

Contributions predicted during forthcoming MTFP window:

Year                       Amount

2018-19                £83,000

2019-20                £482,000

2020-21                £472,000

2021-22                £729,000

Contributions predicted following the MTFP window:

2022-23                £729,000

2023-24                £1,207,000

2024-25                 £1,206,000

2025-26                £1,206,000

2026-27                £1,206,000

Total                      £7,320,000

MRP is presumed to start in the year after the contribution in made.

-       J and E Block – the office rationalization programme is being  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Context

To present a draft Monmouthshire County Council response to the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) consultation Redesigning Mental Health Services for Older People for scrutiny, requesting that Members provide comments to inform the final response to be presented to Council on the 18th January 2018.

Recommendations

That Select Committee scrutinise the attached draft consultation response (Appendix A) and makes recommendations as appropriate.

Key Issues

1. ABUHB approved recommendations at its Board meeting on 27th September 2017 to enter into formal public consultation a preferred option for the redesign of older adult mental health services.

2. The public consultation process was agreed between ABUHB and the Community Health Council to run between November 2017 and January 2018.

3. The ABUHB consultation document is included as Appendix B to this paper. The consultation sets out a vision for older adult mental health services and describes the challenges faced by the Health Board in recruiting a registered mental health nursing workforce to safely provide quality inpatient services. The consultation advises of urgent changes to services that were made in January 2016 to ensure that safe services could be provided. The consultation then sets out and appraises a number of options for future service provision. There is a preferred option described in the paper, to consolidate the number of older adult mental health wards, to 3 dementia wards and 1 functional mental health ward. This option would mean that dementia inpatient services would no longer be provided from St Pierre Services at Chepstow Community Hospital. This would mean that people from Monmouthshire requiring this service would access either St Woolos Hospital or Ysbyty Tri Chwm Hospital in Ebbw Vale.

4. Monmouthshire County Council Members have actively engaged in the ABUHB consultation process. In addition to an all Member seminar, there have a number of public engagement meetings well attended by Councillors. At the all Member seminar, and in public meetings, a number of concerns have been raised regarding the consultation proposals, the lack of consideration in the options appraisal to Monmouthshire’s demographics – current and projected- and prevalence of mental ill health. Concerns have also been consistently raised regarding transport and access issues, the impact on carers, lack of detail around investment in enhanced community services and the impact of service withdrawal on the viability of Chepstow Community Hospital. These concerns mean the consultation response is not supportive of the preferred option. It is proposed that Council expresses a view that a more robust option appraisal is undertaken considers fully all relevant information, and puts in place a plan for quality older adult mental health services – community and inpatient which meet the needs of current and future generations.

5. Notwithstanding the consultation response, it is important to emphasise the absolute commitment of Monmouthshire County Council to work in partnership to deliver integrated health and social care services. The commitment of the Health Board to a positive future for Chepstow Community Hospital, and the work being taken forward to plan for service  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Purpose:

To present the 2017/18 quarter 2 performance information under the remit of Adults

Select Committee, this comprises:

·         Information on how we are performing against a range of nationally set measures related to adult services used by all councils in Wales that were introduced in 2016/17 as part of the Social Services and Well-being Act. A report card has been used that gives context to these.

·         Report benchmarking data to demonstrate how we performed during 2016/17

against the Welsh average.

·         To present information on how the Council is performing in 2017/18 against national performance indicators “Public Accountability Measures’ set by Data Unit Wales that are under the remit of Adults Select Committee.

Recommendations

That Members scrutinise how well the authority is performing on these range of nationally set measures and seek clarity from those responsible on whether performance can improve in any areas of concern identified.

Key Issues

1. The council currently has an established performance framework, this is the way in

which we translate our vision - building sustainable and resilient communities - into

action and ensure that everyone is pulling in the same direction to deliver real and

tangible outcomes. The framework was presented to the Committee in July 2017,

further information on the council’s performance framework for members is available

on the Council’s intranet, The Hub.

2. The report card explains Adult social services key process and performance in quarter 2 2017/18 as well as presenting benchmarking of performance in 2016/17. This comprises of data from the new measurement framework introduced in 2016/17

as part of the Social Services and Well-being Act. The performance measures are a

blend of quantitative (numerical) data and qualitative data which includes asking

people about their experience of social services and whether this has contributed to

improving their well-being.

3. Welsh Government have highlighted that the first year of data collation (2016/17) of the Social Services and Well-being Act performance measurement framework has

provided some challenges and some quality issues with the data and as a result they

have not published local authority level data performance data for 2016-17. Wales

level, means and quartile data have been published which has allowed us to undertake some benchmarking, although this is caveated in how much reliance can

be placed on this given the quality issues raised.

4. There are ongoing discussions and workshops, which we have been part of, on

potentially revising the standards and measures as part of the framework in the future.

5. The qualitative measures within the framework are derived from questionnaires to

adult service users and carers that social services are working with at the beginning

of September. While we continue to send out adult questionnaires monthly from April,

questionnaires are sent to carers starting at the beginning of September, therefore at

quarter 2 we are only able to present data on one month of responses.

6. Another important nationally set framework used to measure local authority

performance is ‘Public Accountability Measures’ set by Data Unit Wales ‘.This includes  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The Actions from the last meeting were noted.

The Council’s statutory and non-statutory responsibilities were circulated, and also a breakdown of grant spending.

The Work Programme for 23^rd January 2018 was too large and amended to include the following items:

·         Empty Homes Update.

·         Gypsy and Traveller Pitch Allocation Policy

·         Safeguarding performance and self-evaluation.

·         Melin Private Leasing Scheme

A Special meeting on 8^th February 2018 at 10.00am was proposed with items to include:

·         Care Closer to Home (to be confirmed)

·         Turning the World Upside Down

·         Re-designation of Shared Housing Accommodation

A Special Joint Children and Young People’s and Adults Select Committees was proposed later in February to consider the following items:

·         Area Plan

·         Disability Transformation Work

Information on work on outreach to address and support people suffering rural isolation and loneliness was requested in terms of initiatives and good practice.  Some background information will be provided and contact with workers in the field will be made available.  The importance of communities and linking people with natural connectors was agreed.

The Council and Cabinet Work Planner was noted.