Agenda item

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care and Health, submits a report that presents an overview of equalities issues relating to Adult Social Care in Leicester.

Members are recommended to note the contents of this report and feedback on any further information they would like the Commission to receive.

Councillor Cleaver arrived during the consideration of this item and resumed the Chair.

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care and Health submitted a report that presented an overview of equalities issues relating to Adult Social Care in Leicester. Councillor Palmer, Deputy City Mayor introduced the report explaining that the information had been provided in response to a previous request from the commission.

Comments and questions on the report from Members included the following:

·         A query was raised in relation to Section 3.6.4 of the report where evidence suggested that people of Asian ethnicity were more likely to assume an unpaid caring role. A Member questioned whether there might be a particular reason for this. The Deputy City Mayor responded that while he could not give a definitive answer to this, this might relate to different cultural traditions as to how families cared for vulnerable members.

The Strategic Director added that the figures were positive in respect of the number of carers who were coming forward to receive support from the service.

·         A Member referred to Section 1.4 of the report which stated that the report focussed on the protected characteristics of age, disability, sex, religion or belief and race, but the majority of service users chose not to disclose other characteristics.  She suggested that those undisclosed characteristics would probably include sexual orientation and gender re-assignment and questioned whether any work had been carried out to capture information from them. A question was also asked as to why the report focussed on the main characteristics and a concern was raised that the minority were being ignored.

The commission heard that the data was taken from the Adult Social Care customer data base. When officers carried out an assessment, the service user would be asked to self-categorise; however the service was not delivered on the basis of protected characteristics. It was probable that there would be very little information on the remaining characteristics.  The Deputy City Mayor added that when the information was initially requested by the scrutiny commission, the query largely focussed on race and religion, so the report mainly responded to that request. There was however no suggestion that the minority groups were being ignored and a piece of work had been carried out in Scrutiny last year which focussed on the needs of the minority groups. These issues were taken very seriously by the council and there was a Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010. The Deputy City Mayor asked people to report any issues where they felt the council were not meeting that duty. 

·         In respect of 3.1.4 of the report, Members queried the engagement process that took place with local residents and the city’s communities. The Deputy City Mayor responded that the council tried to ensure that consultation exercises were appropriate and accessible. He was not aware of any examples where the council had fallen short of this, but again asked people to let him know if they believed otherwise.

·         Philip Parkinson, Healthwatch representative, queried whether there was an increase in safeguarding referrals for people with learning difficulties. The Strategic Director responded that he was not aware of any particular issues but he would investigate further.

·         A Member questioned whether the local authority provided help for people new to Leicester, who had mental health issues. There was a concern that they might not know how to access services. The Deputy City Mayor replied that the issue was to ensure that the health and care system equipped the needs of the population in Leicester; it was evident that there would be a very considerable increase in demand for services. It was important to find ways that people’s needs could be met within the community, so that people in need of a care package would be allocated care appropriate to their needs.  It was also important that those newly arrived to Leicester had resilience within their communities too.

·         A Member referred to the statistics for contact by primary client type and queried that there appeared to be a zero figure for domestic violence. The Strategic Director answered that the primary client type referred to a categorisation at the point of contact along with the client’s primary support reason. There could be more than one reason, but these figures reflected the main presenting issue. He confirmed that he would check to ascertain whether there was anyone with domestic violence as a presenting issue. He asked Members to treat the figures with some caution as clients could have a number of the issues listed in addition to their main presenting reason.

AGREED:

                  that the report be noted.