Agenda item

The Strategic Director, Adult Social care submits a report that provides Scrutiny with an update on six strategic priorities for Adult Social Care reported in May 2016, our quarter one financial performance and other aspects of departmental performance.

The Commission is asked to note the areas of positive achievement for the quarter and areas for improvement.

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care submitted a report that provided the Scrutiny Commission with an update on six strategic priorities for Adult Social Care as reported in May 2016, the quarter one financial performance and other aspects of department performance.

The Deputy City Mayor, with responsibility for Adult Social Care, Health Integration and Wellbeing, presented the report explaining that this was the first report of its type. Given the pace of change, the financial situation and the challenges that were being faced, he felt that the report’s findings were very positive. The Deputy City Mayor acknowledged the efforts of Directors and Heads of Services and added that much of the report was based on people’s experiences and not just statistics.

The Chair also commended the report and invited comments and questions from Members. A series of comments and questions were raised including the following:

·      A Member referred the Deputy City Mayor to the six priorities, as listed in section 3.1.1 of the report and asked him what he considered was the number one priority for the Service.

The Deputy City Mayor responded that he considered the most important priority was SP1: ‘Improve the experience for our customers of both our own interventions and the services we commission to support them’.  This priority spoke directly about the customer, with the aim to continually improve the service and not to remain static. This principle sat behind all the remaining priorities; there was a need to continually try to improve and to be mindful of the experiences of real people.

·      In response to a query relating to complaints and how the council learned from those complaints, Members heard that Strategic Priority 6 addressed the need to learn, improve and innovate. Where concerns, rather than formal complaints, were raised, they were usually dealt with by the practitioner. However, if they were not addressed, they would progress to a formal complaint.

·      Members queried the work being undertaken to support the transition of young people, with care and support needs, into adulthood. The Strategic Director explained that they were working with officers in the Children’s Services to enable an earlier intervention and to improve the dialogue with young people and their families.

·      A concern was raised that there had been an increase in the number of reviews that were overdue by 12 months, from 1207 at the end of March 2016 to 1288. The Strategic Director explained that the performance report related to the first quarter of the year which ended in June 2016. The number of reviews overdue by 12 months had now decreased and the situation was back on target.  A Member asked why there had been so many overdue reviews and the Strategic Director explained that the departmental focus had been on meeting immediate, high risk and crisis referrals / casework and subsequently the work on annual reviews had lagged behind over the previous two years.  However, in order to improve, on this position, new initiatives had subsequently been put into place, including a tracking system and giving higher priority to outstanding reviews.  

·      A Member referred to Section 3.3.2 of the report which stated that the level of net increase in the number of long term service users in quarter one was slightly lower that the growth seen in 2015/16 and questioned whether there was any reason for this. The Deputy City Mayor and Strategic Director responded that as the figures related to quarter one, it was too early to draw any meaningful conclusions; trends might be more evident once the quarter three figures were available.

·      A member referred to paragraph 3.2.5 of the report and noted that 37.1% of people involved in a concluded safeguarding enquiry had had their safeguarding outcomes either partially or fully me. She asked how many people this percentage represented. The Strategic Director responded that he would forward this information to Members as he didn’t have those figures with him.

·      In response to a query relating to alerts, Members heard that referrals could be submitted from any source and every contact was recorded. Some were relatively straightforward while others would progress to a Section 42 safeguarding enquiry. The completion of 81.9% safeguarding enquiries within 28 days was an improvement.

·      Strong concerns were expressed that the financial viability of existing and new schemes for Extra Care Housing were being jeopardised because of government plans to cap housing benefit payments for residents in Extra Care flats. The Deputy City Mayor commented that he had written to the Secretary of State and would continue to campaign against the proposals. The Strategic Director also expressed concerns that the proposals to cap benefit payments for residents in Extra Care facilities was contradictory to the policy of promoting self-independence.   It was agreed that the Chair, with the assistance of Councillor Dempster, would write to the Secretary of State, expressing the concerns of the Scrutiny Commission about the proposal.

·      A Member queried the levels of sickness absence, asking how they compared to other services across the Council. The Strategic Director explained that the service’s sickness levels were in the top third in the Council and were too high but over the past few months were being managed with a more robust approach to applying the Council’s procedures.  At the same time there was a need to manage sickness levels positively rather than negatively, for example ensuring people’s ability to return to work, as it had been demonstrated that this resulted in better outcomes.

·      A Member referred to the results from the national survey of service users which showed that Leicester was rated as poor compared to other authorities. The Deputy City Mayor responded that it was perplexing that the national survey contradicted information obtained locally.  He was of the view that the local data was more reliable, but cautioned that this should not lead to complacency. The representative from Healthwatch confirmed that from their experience of dealing with service users, the data from the national survey conflicted with that obtained locally.

The Chair thanked officers for the report stating that it was clear and interesting to read.  The Strategic Director informed Members that any feedback on the report would be welcome and he would be happy to amend future reports or present information in a different way if requested.

RESOLVED:

that the report be noted and for further reports to be received when available.