Agendas, Meetings and Minutes - Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: County Hall, Worcester

Contact: Emma James /Jo Weston  Overview & Scrutiny Officers

Media

Items
No. Item

426.

Apologies and Welcome

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting.

427.

Declarations of Interest

Additional documents:

Minutes:

None.

428.

Public Participation

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Assistant Director for Legal and Governance in writing or by e-mail indicating both the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case Thursday 19 May 2022).  Further details are available on the Council's website.  Enquiries can also be made through the telephone number/e-mail address listed in this agenda and on the website.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

None.

429.

Confirmation of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Previously circulated

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Minutes of the previous meeting held on 15 March 2022 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

 

430.

Refresh of the Scrutiny Work Programme 2022/23 pdf icon PDF 134 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Panel was asked to consider and prioritise the draft 2022/23 Work Programme and consider whether any amendments were required.

 

The following topics were added:

·      Role of Adult Services in Hospital Discharge

·      Better Care Fund (BCF)

·      Intermediate Care – a suggestion from the People Directorate Officers present, which would be appropriate to schedule alongside the BCF

 

The Chairman requested that the items on Independence Focused Domiciliary Care and Cost Benefit of IT in Care Planning, be grouped on the same Agenda.

431.

Direct Payments pdf icon PDF 1 MB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Kerry McCrossan, Assistant Director for Adult Social Care provided a summary of the report on Direct Payments.

 

Direct payments were about people commissioning their own care, and the Officers present were really passionate about facilitating this duty, which was part of the Care Act 2014 and which really supported the Council’s strengths-based approach to social care. 

 

There were a number of ways to receive direct payments and the pre-payment account provided a bespoke card and payments went directly in and could be monitored. To provide options, managed and traditional accounts were also possible.

 

The Agenda included a web-link to videos on the Council’s website, with examples of people who had benefited from the choice and control given to them by direct payments, although not everyone would want this responsibility.

 

The rate of pay for a personal assistant was competitive, and therefore also cost effective for the Council.

 

Misuse of direct payments was very rare, therefore the benefits outweighed the risks, and staff would work with any individuals who had not fully understood the rules. 

 

Through the Direct Payments Programme which had been ongoing over the past two years, Officers had worked extremely hard to make the process as seamless as possible to increase take-up. The aim was to roll out the developments across all staff channels, through mandatory training, staff briefings and promotional material.

 

A key area of work was to expand a register of personal assistants (PAs) and a standardised rate was being worked on to make the role more attractive. PA Micro-enterprises was another huge piece of work scheduled for the next two years to develop small, community-based micro-enterprises which would expand options for people who were receptive to direct payments but did not want to be an employer themselves.

 

Statistically the Council had been one of the lowest performers in direct payments regionally and nationally. The latest benchmarking data would not be released until August, however it was hoped that the programme in Worcestershire would have had a positive impact and it was important to note that this work had not been put on hold during the Covid pandemic. It was hoped that the fact that performance in Worcestershire had dropped less than 1% during the pandemic indicated that performance was now closer to its comparators.

 

The Chairman invited discussion and the following main points were made:

 

·       The Panel Chairman was pleased to hear about the work to promote direct payments and the staff training programme.

·       The Panel was advised that direct payments were reviewed with the same regularity as other services; every 12 months or when a change or issues arose – reviews also provided an opportunity to raise the option of a direct payment.

·       Direct payments were means tested, exactly like other services.

·       In terms of promoting direct payments to individual and families, the Directorate wanted to expand opportunities before people reached the point of needing support, for example through training staff, availability of leaflets and developing the website, as well as during the first  ...  view the full minutes text for item 431.