Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest made by Members.

There were no members of the public present at the meeting.

·         Joint Select Committee Budget Meeting – 16^th December 2015

·         Joint Children and Young People Select and Adults Select Committee – 16^th December 2015

·         Adults Select Committee – 19^th January 2016

The minutes of the following meetings were confirmed and signed by the Chairman as an accurate record:

Joint Select Budget – 16^th December 2015

Joint Adults and Children and Young People Select – 16^th December 2015

Adults Select Committee – 19^th January 2016

In doing so the Committee noted that amendments to the minutes of both joint meetings held on 16^th December 2015 had been addressed at the meeting of Children and Young People Select on 11^th February 2016.

It was noted that there was a typographical error on the minutes of 19^th January 2016, in the spelling of Mrs Hudson.

Context:

Adults Select Committee received a report from the Lead Commissioner QA (Adult Social Care &n Health) & SP Lead Officer, in order to present Members with the proposed developments in the Supporting People Programme Grant funded provision in 2016/17.

Key Issues:

During 2015 the expectation was that SPPG would be cut by anything up to 25%. Therefore a number of cut-management scenarios were worked through. However, in January 2016, the Minister announced indicative local authority allocations that maintained funding levels at 2015/16 levels - £2,039,175 for Monmouthshire

Included in these cut-management strategies was the assumption that Phase II of our SP pricing strategy would be implemented.

Phase I was implemented in 2015/16 and which ensured a consistency across the provision based on the cost per funded support worker. At the same time the principle of only funding support hours delivered was introduced (as opposed to block contracting). The latter implementation generated some clawback opportunities that generated in-year underspends that allowed 2 younger person services to be piloted.

Applying the Phase II strategy, which makes the cost per actual support hour delivered consistent, releases a further £141k for service developments.

Over the last year expectations for SP to link with and/or support other initiatives has increased. There are a range of increased expectations associated with the Social Services and Well-being Act, primarily related to primary prevention and early interventions. Welfare benefit and housing reforms have also increased the incidence of people needing help and support to address their immediate housing issues. The Minister has further called for a closer collaboration between the 3 Tackling Poverty initiatives and SP (Communities First, Families First and Flying Start). There are increased expectations with respect to SP support in domestic abuse and violence situations and in the effective resettlement of prisoners on release.  Monmouthshire already has an effective service provision for domestic abuse and further developments in this area and prison release have been organised on a regional basis via the Regional Collaborative Committee.

Member Scrutiny:

A Member questioned the relevance of including 2013 information in the report.  We were informed that a weakness of Welsh Government proposals for local commissioning plans in the future were that where there was a three year commissioning plan, at the end of the three years the figures the plan had been based on were four years old.

Members requested examples of external providers and questioned how these bodies were scrutinised. We were informed that Monmouthshire Housing provide support for older people, the service had been reconfigured in 2011/12 to meet the needs at that time.  The needs of Monmouthshire’s older people had since changed and we had been clawing money back from Monmouthshire Housing as there was not enough demand for the support hours being providers.  The age group had now been extended to any age group rather than continuing to claw money back.

County Councillor A. Wintle declared a personal, non-prejudicial interest under the Members’ Code of Conduct, as a Director of Monmouthshire Housing.

The Supporting People  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Context:

Members received a report and video presentation in order to receive detail and an evaluation of the Community Coordination and Small Local Enterprise Learning pilot that is scheduled to run until the end of May 2016.

Key Issues:

The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 comes into effect on 6^th April 2016 and highlights the role of public services in building on individual and family strengths, helping people to have a stronger voice, choice and more control supporting a meaningful contribution to local community life, the coproduction of person centred services and the achievement of personal outcomes. The Act also creates a duty on local authorities to ensure appropriate services to help prevent, delay and reduce the need for care and support.

Community Coordination is based on establishing local coordinators within communities to work with people who may otherwise require traditional social services. By engaging early on, building on strengths and helping people to build local connections they help people find their own lasting solutions. The development of small local enterprises facilitates the promotion of community enterprises whose aim, in general, is to improve the wellbeing of those involved as well the wider impact of improved community integration.

The work was initially presented as a learning pilot. Cabinet decided that the programme would be monitored throughout and the learning used to adapt the work as it progressed. Consequently Adults Select have received reports over the past eighteen months and will be broadly familiar with the evolving nature of the programme but not the precise nature of it.

The learning pilot produced a number of stories that identified improved outcomes for individuals. While there is not yet enough evidence to aggregate the impact of these studies, in some cases practitioners within the integrated teams were clear that without the intervention individuals on their way towards a care package had been diverted towards a more informal community arrangement.

The most significant conclusions highlight the importance of place and in particular the existence of buildings and facilities where individuals and groups can come together to create a sense of community, friendship, reciprocity and belonging that builds lasting connections.

People have a need to be involved in shaping their own future. Many of those who benefitted from the work wanted to be active participants who co-produced their own solutions not passive recipients of services. It is through contribution and involvement that people achieve a greater sense purpose and identity.

This cannot be viewed in isolation from the system-wide transformation taking place in adult social services and it is difficult to separate out the relative impacts of the different transformation strands. The decision to go ahead with the programme back in 2013 has yielded valuable learning that will position the authority well to implement the Social Services and Well-being Act as well as aligning very clearly with the principles of the Well-being of Future Generations Act.

The programme has facilitated positive outcomes for individuals and enabled the service to be on-budget. There  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Context:

We received a report from the Housing Renewal Manager in order to provide Members with an update on the capital budget provided to support disabled facilities grants (DFGs) and Safety at Home (SAHs) grants and the impact on overall service performance and on services provided by Social Care and Health.

Key Issues:

The Council has a statutory obligation to provide DFG’s within six months of receiving a valid application. Failure to do so it risks legal challenge. It also has discretion to provide SAHs. Since 2006 a capital budget of £600,000 has been provided annually to fund both types of grant. In broad terms the budget is split into

£500,000 to support DFGs and £100,000 to support SAHs.

All DFGs are capped at £36,000 and while the majority are in the region of £4,500, each year a number of larger, complex grants are provided to meet the needs of children with complex disabilities. Increasingly, this also relates to adults who are disabled as a result of trauma or degenerative diseases. Client feedback has confirmed that adaptations significantly impact on the quality of life of both applicants and carers. Also, customer satisfaction scores of 95% are regularly being achieved.

SAHs are intended for smaller works such as handrails, half steps and minor alterations, often costing less than £250 but which make a dwelling safer. They are frequently commissioned to facilitate hospital discharge, or to reduce the risk of falls and injuries which might necessitate hospitalisation. Both grants play a key role in facilitating discharge from hospital and preventing admission.

In addition to the impact upon client of having to wait longer for adaptations to be carried out, the annual shortage of funds and ever earlier full commitment of them has adverse effects on the Council’s performance in respect of DFG turnaround which is a KPI that is monitored closely by the Welsh Government and in particular by the Older Persons Commissioner for Wales.

Alternatives to DFGs and SAHs do exist, though none are as attractive as grant aid but nevertheless some potential grant recipients do opt to proceed with the necessary works at their own cost.

The options available to the Council are:

·         Continue with the status quo. The advantage of this option is the Council’s current capital commitment for disabled adaptations is maintained and there is no additional impact on the wider capital programme. The disadvantages are: the Council will continue to have a backlog of applicants waiting for disabled adaptations and the associated impacts on safety and quality of life for associated individuals; it makes no allowances for the impact of certainly previous inflationary pressures and there will be a continued impact on Social Care & Health services.

·         Increasing the annual available capital funding for disabled adaptations. The advantage of this option is this will help to reduce (or eliminate) the number of applicants waiting and ease the pressures on Social Care & Health services. The disadvantage is there will be a knock on impact on the Council’s wider capital  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Committee agreed to note the forward work programme.

The Chair wished to report that discussions with the Health Authority regarding End of Life.  The Chair had been invited to speak at a local launch of the programme and did so on the back of Select Committee interest.  As a result it was clear that ABUHB is lining up to be the first health board in Wales to take the initiative forward and would like a Local Authority partner on side from the beginning, being MCC.

In order to identify support it was agreed to hold a special short section at Full Council on 12^th May 2016.  It was agreed that the Chair would continue discussions.