Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Aldred, and from Mr Michael Smith, Healthwatch (Standing Invitee).

Members are asked to declare any interests they may have in the business to be discussed.

Members were asked to declare any interest they may have in the business to be discussed on the agenda.

Clr Joshi declared an Other Disclosable Interest in that his wife was an employee of Leicester City Council in Adult Social Care.

In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct, this interest was not considered so significant that it was likely to prejudice Councillor Joshi’s judgement of the public interest. He therefore was not required to withdraw from the meeting during consideration of the item.

The minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 19^th June 2018 are attached and the Commission is asked to confirm them as a correct record.

AGREED:

that the minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 19^th June 2018 be confirmed as a correct record.

The Monitoring Officer to report on any petitions received.

The Monitoring Officer reported that no petitions had been received.

The Monitoring Officer to report on any questions, representations or statements of case.

The Monitoring Officer reported that no questions, representations or statements of case had been received.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submits a report which summarises the key findings from four key activities undertaken to explore social work practice. These are the Healthy Workplace Survey, Employee Engagement Survey, My Time Peer Review and Annual Health Check. The Scrutiny Commission is asked to note the content of the report and comment on and endorse the progress made in improving the approach to social care practice within Adult Social Care, express its support to the continued progress and change in practice culture that has occurred in Adult Social Care, and consider what further information could be provided which would assure the Commission that a positive change in social care practice continues to be embedded in adult social care services.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submitted a report which summarised the key findings from four key activities undertaken to explore social work practice, namely Healthy Workplace Survey, Employee Engagement Survey, My Time Peer Review and Annual Health Check. The Commission was asked to note the content of the report and comment on and endorse the progress made in improving the approach to social care practice within Adult Social Care (ASC), express its support to the continued progress and change in practice and culture that had occurred in ASC, and consider what further information could be provided which would assure the Commission that a positive change in social care practice continued to be embedded in adult social care services.

The Chair commended all employees in adult social care, and the challenging roles they undertook.

The Assistant Mayor noted that the report was about support for a range of staff. It was noted there were issues around money, but social care was down to the quality of staff, having the right supervision and support for staff, so they could work effectively for the residents of the city. Reports stated the section was going in the right direction, and were important for staff and the service.

A presentation was delivered on Social Care Practice (attached for information), and the following points were made:

·                  Findings showed how views and opinions on social care had changed over the last few years.

·                  Social work was challenging and emotional, and management visibility was paramount.

Councillor Chaplin joined the meeting at this point.

·                  Officers explained how an environment of trust, supervision time and team meetings had allowed staff to raise issues and concerns. Staff morale and confidence had increased over the past two years.

·                  Liquid Logic had been introduced a number of years ago, and processes that were initially difficult have improved over time. People had now got used to it, and it was considered better than the previous system, though more work could still be done to further streamline the system.

·                  Generic social work teams had now moved into a specialist team structure, which was better for staff and service users.

·                  The self-assessment pilot had allowed practitioners to work autonomously, and relationships to evolve with service users. Case file audits had been introduced.

·                  During the pilot, staff told managers that they were more engaged and implemented self-monitoring skills, felt more empowered and responsible. The pilot would now be rolled out in all service areas.

·                  Data on staff time was useful, to assure that people were doing what was expected of them, and staff had welcomed the change.

·                  Lots of positives had been gained from the My Time Peer Review with Nottingham City Council. Various things identified included LCC management supported workers, there were regular opportunities for supervision, reflective practice, positive risk taking and decision making, which gave a focus on moving forward with improved working. Areas to consider were how practitioners could develop further, and how lessons learned could be implemented into practice.

The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

The Director of Adult Social Care and Safeguarding will provide a verbal update at the meeting.

The Director for Adult Social Care and Safeguarding provided a verbal update on a strengths and asset based approach within social work practice.

The following points were made:

·         Strengths based practice was a term used for building support within social care, and putting the person looking for support at the centre of social work, not just by focussing on their needs, but by really enabling them to identify the things they wanted to be different and to work up solutions about how they could achieve that.

·         The practice focussed on an individual’s strengths, which might be, families, communities, networks. The approach did not diminish Adult Social Care’s statutory duties, nor did it take away things like eligibility for service provision. But it required Adult Social Care to get to those matters in a different way, to help people resolve their own situations, with Adult Social Care support as needed.

·         The asset based approach was about how Adult Social Care helped people to make the best use of local assets, where they could use them to meet a need or desired outcome, for example, community services, informal networks. A pilot was run for about a year within the front door service, to test out what it meant for staff and customers in practice. Some of the key learning points were:

o   Time – staff spending more time with people in conversations aimed at finding sustainable solutions;

o   Trust – managers allowing staff to be more self-directing in how they help a customer achieve their outcomes;

o   Sustainability – solutions could take a little extra time to achieve but were sustainable for the longer term, meaning people were not coming back for support on a repeated basis;

o   Confidence and satisfaction – staff loved this way of working and customers found it beneficial;

o   Training – there were some extra skills that staff needed, for example in motivational interview techniques;

o   Culture – there was work still to do to support all staff to understand how they could adopt the strengths based practice;

o   Assets – people were able to use what was available but there was a limited amount of community capacity building resources within Leicester. Any solution to that was wider than Adult Social Care.

·         Next steps – the Department would take the following three actions over the remainder of the financial year:

o   Defining strengths and asset based approaches to help staff understand the two.

o   Investment in training – developing a skills programme for staff to enable them to take a different approach to conversations with people who approach us for support and also with long-term clients;

o   Process – need to continually learn and develop processes, using customer outcome as a basis for forms.

·         The Department hoped that the first three steps would support staff to work in a way the pilot identified was good for customers and good for the Department. A report on progress would be brought to a future meeting of the Commission.

The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submits a report which provides the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission with an update on the outcome of the recent consultation exercise for the Carer’s Strategy. The Scrutiny Commission is asked to note the report, and provide any comments on the overarching consultation findings to the Strategic Director of Social Care and Education and/or the Lead Executive Member.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submitted a report which provided the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission with an update on the outcome of the recent consultation exercise for the Carers’ Strategy. The Scrutiny Commission was asked to note the report and provide any comments on the overarching consultation findings to the Strategic Director of Social Care and Education and/or the Lead Executive Member.

The report provided a summary of the findings of a public consultation exercise undertaken between 28 February 2018 and 22^nd April 2018, on the draft Joint Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Carers Strategy 2018-2021 appended to the report.

The Lead Commissioner, Adult Social Care and Commissioning, provided the following information:

·                  There were 230 respondents, 62 of which lived within Leicester.

·                  Consultation was hosted by County Council, following which each authority was given its own data to analyse. Some themes identified during consultation were:

o   The draft strategy was well received by the majority of respondents who believed it reflected carers’ issues, though more detail was needed.

o   People were a little unhappy on how health and social care worked with organisations.

o   More respite and services were needed.

o   Young carers in the city felt their needs were not recognised in the strategy.

o   Parent carers were underrepresented and their needs not understood.

o   Some of the language could be clearer.

·                  It was felt that the strategy itself could not be wholeheartedly accepted because of the number of young carers who felt their needs weren’t reflected. Therefore, County had been informed the City could not sign off the strategy as yet to allow time for young carers’ issues to be addressed.

·                  The next step would be to meet with young carers and to defer the launch of the strategy until further developed.

The Chair said there were significant concerns around young carers and how the strategy could be moved forward. She added it was something that should not be rushed into to avoid mistakes and ensure young carers were looked after.

The Vice-Chair asked that of the 230 responses received, what were the demographics; how many were carers and how many were service users. The Commission was informed that information was available and a breakdown by district and how people identified themselves, for example, carer, professional, would be provided to Members of the Scrutiny Commission by officers.

Further information was provided, as follows:

·                  Significant progress had been made through approaching Barnardos, to enable recognising carers in schools, helping under 18s with adulthood approaching, who wanted help with their future lives / to go to college / university, but wanted assurance that their parent / sibling would be looked after. It was recognised there was work to be done before a refreshed strategy could be signed off.

·                  Post-consultation the strategy would be revisited. Officers were confident that through a cohesive approach, the strategy would be delivered by the end of the year, to include young carer and parent carer issues raised.

·                  There were carers groups  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22.

The Director for Adult Social Care and Commissioning will provide a verbal update on recent consultation.

The Director for Adult Social Care and Commissioning provided a verbal update on recent consultation on three areas as part of Adult Social Care’s requirement to find £790k from its VCS budget for 2018/19.

The following information was provided by the Assistant City Mayor for Adult Social Care and Wellbeing:

·         Visual and Dual Sensory Impairment Support – currently Vista provide the service.

·         The total contract value is £296,525, and the proposal was to reduce the budget to £188,129.

·         For 2017/18 the contract value was reduced from £296,525 to £279,000 with agreement with Vista as they could not achieve the required contractual outputs due to lack of demand.

·         The current contract was due to end on 31 March 2019. The proposal was to reduce the contract value and to fund only the statutory elements of the service.

·         244 people responded to the survey. 107 people (44%) disagreed with the proposal. 63 people (26%) agreed and 58 people (24%) did not know / not sure, and 16 people (6%) did not answer the question.

·         The consultation proposed funding of £148,129, but as a result of feedback it was proposed to increase the funding to £188,129 (£40k increase). The additional £40k would cover the £35k for a specialist work for deafblind reablement and £5k for specialist equipment.

·         Though the budget would be reduced, there would still be a significant service available.

Members noted that Vista was a long-established organisation. They asked that with the cutbacks recently, would Vista be able to deliver the services needed, were they going to be centrally located, or would someone go out to see people individually. In response, it was noted that the contract with Vista had been in place for many years. With agreement the budget had been reduced from the previous financial year as not many people had used the service. As a statutory provision, it had been discussed in detail what was required. Vista would have a central point and outreach as part of the contract. It had been agreed the original proposed budget reduction was not sufficient and it had been agreed to increase from £144,129 pa to £188,129 pa to include reablement for deaf/blind users and monies for equipment. It was noted that other organisations would be able to apply for the contract.

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care and Education informed the meeting that the decision had been reviewed, and the Assistant City Mayor for Adult Social Care and Wellbeing had made the decision to increase the proposed budget from £144,129 pa to £188,129 pa.  The Chair added it was important that staff and the community were looked after, and to make it clear there were no consultations with a pre-set decision, but that results were analysed.

The Assistant City Mayor for Adult Social Care and Wellbeing, then provided an overview of the proposed changes to carers support services.

·         There were current five contracts with three organisations (Carers Centre, Age UK, Ansaar). Consultation had been undertaken on the proposal to reduce funding  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

The Director of Adult Social Care and Safeguarding will provide an update on the consultation undertaken.

The Director for Adult Social Care and Safeguarding provided a verbal update on consultation undertaken.

It was noted that:

1. It was proposed to bring the standard allowance into line with what people actually spent on disability costs.
2. The consultation was still live online.
3. An Equalities Impact Assessment would be brought to a future meeting of the Commission.

In response to a question, Members were informed that changes did not affect the services that service users or their carers received.

The Chair noted that a full report and Equalities Impact Assessment would be brought to a future meeting of the Commission.

The Chair thanked the officer for the update.

It was AGREED that:

1. The update be noted;
2. A full report with the Equalities Impact Assessment attached be brought to a future meeting of the Commission.

The current work programme for the Commission is attached.  The Commission is asked to consider this and make comments and/or amendments as it considers necessary.

The Commission’s Work programme was submitted and noted.

Task and finish group meetings on the Government’s Adult Social Care Green Paper would be arranged ahead of publication.

·         Under Member Development Training, the Scrutiny Skills training to include an item on forming recommendations.

·         The Chair took the opportunity to thank Members for their involvement with the briefing on changes to advocacy services and reminded the Commission of the second briefing on Wednesday 12^th September, and for attendance confirmation to be sent to the Scrutiny Policy Officer.

There being no other items of urgent business, the meeting closed at 9.05pm.