Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Bryan Allbut.

None.

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Head of Legal and Democratic Services in writing or by e-mail indicating the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case 25 January 2017).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number/e-mail address below.

None.

The Board was asked to consider and approve the report of the 2017/18 budget scrutiny task group.

The Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board (OSPB) began by tabling an amendment to the draft scrutiny report in response to the findings of the Ofsted inspection of Worcestershire Children's Services.

In introducing the scrutiny report, he highlighted the following main points:

·       The scrutiny task group had identified a number of initiatives which may help to bridge the £2.9 million forecast financial planning gap.

·       Paragraph 22 referred to the County Council's agricultural assets, with the suggestion that a future scrutiny could look at how things might be done better.

·       An 'open book' policy (paragraph 21) would allow Members to see what profits were being made by provider organisations.

·       With reference to Place Partnership (paragraph 23), there was a need for further challenge.

·       The Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) Panel had not made any recommendations as it was awaiting the outcomes of the Ofsted inspection.  The Ofsted report had now been published and the Children and Families O&S Panel was meeting on 27 January to consider the implications.  The Ofsted report included a paragraph which specifically criticised the Scrutiny Panel.  The Chairman of the OSPB felt that this criticism was unfair and unfounded.  The Panel's work in relation to Children's Centres had naturally taken priority in recent months but services working to protect children had also been covered.  However, he acknowledged that in general scrutiny needed to challenge more.

The Board went on to discuss scrutiny's response to the Ofsted report and the following main points were made:

·       The Chairman of the Children and Families O&S Panel acknowledged that there was always room for improvement and the Panel should not be complacent.  However, many of the areas covered by the Ofsted report had been considered by the Scrutiny Panel in the past year and had been referred to come back to the Panel as concerns remained.  It may be that the period of time before the issues were reconsidered was too long.  The suggestion by Ofsted was that the Panel had taken its eye off the ball and should have held more meetings to consider more issues.  However, this had implications for the resources available to support the Panel.  It was acknowledged that the changes of leadership in Children's Services and the resulting lack of continuity had caused difficulties.

·       The focus on the changes to Children's Centres had been important but had perhaps meant that the issues in social care had been missed.  The focus had been on doing something for a large number of vulnerable children rather than a focus on those at the edge of care.  It was recognised that this was a capacity issue and reinforced the importance of a well-resourced Democratic Services team.

·       It would be important for the Panel to focus on the implementation of the Ofsted recommendations rather than looking back at what went wrong.  The Panel would need time to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 968.

The Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board (OSPB) was asked to consider and approve the draft scrutiny report of the Commissioning: Staff Terms and Conditions Scrutiny Task Group.

In introducing the draft report, the Task Group's Lead Member made the following main points:

·       The scrutiny had originally been set up as a result of a Member's concerns about the terms and conditions of care workers working for organisations who had been commissioned by Adult Social Care.  Initial concerns had been in relation to payment for travelling time and whether 'wage theft' resulted in wages dropping below the minimum wage.

·       The terms of reference had expanded as the scrutiny went on and the Task Group had looked at a range of commissioned services and considered quality control.  The Task Group had been told that there was no reason why Scrutiny Members could not see Key Performance Indicators used by commissioners to monitor performance in relation to commissioned services.

·       The legal advice received by the Task Group was that it was virtually impossible for the County Council to insist on union representation when staff were transferred to other organisations.

·       One recommendation related to the development of a Social Value Policy and this should be monitored over time.  It was suggested that the Corporate and Communities O&S Panel should receive an update on this in 12 months' time.

·       It was acknowledged that some of the Task Group's recommendations could have been stronger but Members had to work within the parameters of what could and could not be achieved.

The Chairman of the OSPB informed Members that he felt this was one of the most important scrutiny reports of the last 4 years.  There was serious concern about the terms and conditions of employees transferred to other employers as part of the Council's commissioning programme.  He was disappointed that the Task Group did not feel it could recommend that trade union recognition rights should be retained when staff were transferred.  Trade union membership was a basic human right and the County Council should be able to insist that these rights were retained.  It was suggested that, although an employee could retain the right to trade union membership, it was not possible for the County Council to insist that recognition of trade unions was maintained by new employers.

Members were invited to ask questions.  The following main points were made:

·       Members were reminded that, when services were commissioned out, the County Council as commissioners retained responsibility for quality and risk.

·       Members were reminded that the care industry had a high level of staff turnover and it was suggested that one of the reasons for this was the terms and conditions offered by unscrupulous employers.  The County Council should aim to offer a 'gold standard' so that people wanted to work for the authority (or organisations commissioned by it).  Union recognition was an important part of this and the County Council should not be working with organisations which did not support strong trade unions.  It was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 969.

The Board was asked to consider and approve the draft report of the Effectiveness of the Prevention and Recovery Drug and Alcohol Misuse Service scrutiny task group.

In introducing the draft report, the Lead Member made the following main points:

·       This was the fifth task group that he had been involved with and it was the most robust and the most challenging.

·       Before Swanswell had taken over the service, there had been 59 deaths in 2 years.  Drugs and alcohol cause major problems for many in terms of personal and family life.  Members had been impressed by the level of partnership working across Public Health, the Police and Health Services, all of which had taken a joined up approach to the issue.

·       The Task Group had heard glowing praise for Swanswell throughout the scrutiny exercise.  However there was some concern that the recent merger of Swansell with another organisation would have an impact on the established good practice.

·       The service was not as well funded as in other local authorities and it would be important to keep a close eye on future funding.

·       The Lead Member thanked all those involved in the scrutiny, including the Scrutiny Officers, the Cabinet Member, the Director of Public Health, the Commissioning Manager and the Members of the Task Group.

·       Members may have noticed a lack of statistics in the report.  The Task Group had been advised that it would be against the law to include statistics as these were official Government statistics.  The only figures that were available for inclusion were 3 years old.  OSPB was advised that a private briefing was available for any Members who wished to look at the statistics.  However, the Lead Member reassured the Board that the service was moving in the right direction on every KPI.

The Cabinet Member was asked to comment.  He felt that it was a well written report and thanked Members and Officers for their work.  He confirmed that it was currently not legally possible to provide year-end figures.  He was very confident that the merger of Swanswell with Cranstoun would not affect the service provided.

The Director of Public Health added her thanks to scrutiny for the report.  This was often a Cinderella service and she had been pleased with the level of commitment.  She informed Members that she had recently met with the Chief Executive and Director of Operations at Cranstoun and had been reassured that the merger would not destabilise the service in any way.

Members of OSPB were invited to ask questions.  The following main points were made:

·       It was noted that the report focused on the symptoms of the problem rather than the causes.  In future, it may be helpful to consider the causes of drug and alcohol addiction and look at what happened to people before they became addicted.  The Task Group's Lead Member advised that, although this was not an area of expertise, the Task Group had been informed that people with mental health issues were most  ...  view the full minutes text for item 970.