Agenda item

Children and Families O&S Panel

The Family Front Door Scrutiny would now focus on the Council's relationship with schools, rather than all parties involved.

The Panel continued to keep updated on the future of Short Breaks for children with disabilities.

Corporate and Communities O&S Panel

The Panel had looked at the Libraries consultation and withdrawal of the school library service. The Panel Chairman was also aware of briefings at district level. The Panel had been reassured that the aim of the consultation was to look for savings and better ways of working and there had been no mention of closing libraries.

Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC)

During a meeting attended by the Worcestershire Hospital Trust's new Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief executive, the HOSC had been updated on evaluation work of Winter pressures and detailed plans for this Winter..

An update had also been provided on the quality of Acute Hospital Services and feedback from the latest Care Quality Commission inspection. The HOSC Chairman had invited himself to one of the Trust's staff feedback sessions at Kidderminster Hospital which had provided detail about the moves taking place, from which it was hoped to see improvements.

Other Board members who were also HOSC members were disappointed by the delay in completion of the bridge work at Worcestershire Royal Hospital which would delay implementation of  extra bed capacity. There had been optimism from the Trust about plans for the winter but members queried whether aspirations were achievable and the potential impact if this winter was harsh.

Adult Care and Wellbeing O&S Panel

The Panel would now be receiving regular updates on the Adult Social Care Outcome Framework and would be updated on the Adult Social Care Business Plan.

Referring to the comments from the November O&S Panel budget meetings, the Chairman highlighted the Panel's concern about the £14.3m overspend in Adult Services, although it was recognised that in part this was due to savings from the new Three Conversation Model coming through later than anticipated.

Public Health was predicting a small surplus budget, however from 2020 the budget would no longer be ring-fenced.

Updates on the Three Conversations model and on assistive technology were planned.

A Board member queried the value of assistive technology against a human visit, and was advised that members had seen assistive technology working very well and for many people it gave back a degree of control. It was hoped to arrange a member visit to see assistive technology in action.

A Board member asked whether the Panel Chair had been able to attend Directorate meetings which included updates on quality assurance at nursing homes and was advised that this was being arranged.

Economy and Environment O&S Panel

The Panel had been updated on broadband, with the Council's initiatives proving very successful and 90% of businesses were now connected to fibre. The latest rollout was for fibre to premises in areas more difficult to connect. There were grants of up to £3,000 available for those who were not part of the rollout programme, and details were available on the Superfast Worcestershire website.

An update on allocation of the additional £6mfor footways had been positive about numbers of those being upgraded although the programme would continue until August due to delays.

Regarding highways and communication with the public, there had not been any progress to develop a mobile app for public use, which Panel members wanted, and with no real commitment gained, this was something the Panel may need to revisit.

On the issue of work with district councils to reduce grass growing along carriageway kerbs, the Panel had been updated that there was a reluctance because of lack of funds. The Panel may request a further update.  

The Panel had been provided with some performance data, although some information was not easily interpreted and a further, informal session was being arranged. The Panel Chairman encouraged all Scrutiny Chairmen to push for information on performance and trends.

The Task Group review of the budget for the Panel's remit had started and while the information made available was much better than the previous year, the Chairman felt there was still a long way to go before members could really scrutinise the budget.

In response to a suggestion from the OSPB Vice-Chairman that one approach for the following year could be to invite all Directors to an OSPB meeting to present the relevant data in an accessible format, the Panel Chairman referred to the Directorate performance dashboards, which would be useful for Board members, although constant changes to the format made it harder to compare like for like.

Performance Monitoring

The OSPB Chairman referred to his meeting with the Chief Financial Officer and Director of Commercial and Commissioning to discuss scrutiny's role in performance monitoring. Because of the resulting lack of clarity on availability of data to enable dates to be scheduled, the Chairman had written to the Chief Executive. A reply had not yet been received and would be followed up, however the Chairman was clear that Scrutiny should be able to review performance four times a year and if the information was not forthcoming he asked Panel Chairmen to let him know, at which point the Board would need to revisit how this should be pursued.