The Monitoring Officer to report on the receipt of any questions, representations and statements of case submitted in accordance with the Council’s procedures.
Minutes:
The Monitoring Officer reported that no questions, representations and statements of case had been submitted in accordance with the Council’s procedures.
The Chair indicated that she had received questions from Dr Sally Ruane, Campaign Against NHS Privatisation outside the time limits allowed by the Constitution for it to printed on the agenda but had used discretion to accept them as they raised relevant issues to the Sustainability Transformation Plan process.
The Chair had recently met CANP who had expressed their concerns and frustrations around the transparency of the STP process. A number of these concerns related to the organisational systems for developing the STP and the Chair felt it was helpful to have these issues address in public.
The questions and the responses received from officers are set out below:-
QUESTION 1
What are the channels and processes used by the City Council's representative(s) on the STP System Leadership Team (SLT) meetings for feeding back, updating and consulting councillors and officers, including but not confined to members of the scrutiny commission, regarding developments and proposals at SLT meetings. Are any of the records / notes arising from these feedback mechanisms available to the public?
RESPONSE
The Strategic Director for Adult Social Care represents the City Council on the System Leadership Team (SLT). Minutes of the SLT meeting are shared with all members of the meeting, and these are available to other relevant officers in the City Council through the Strategic Director. Verbal feedback from the Strategic Director is undertaken with the City Mayor and Deputy City Mayor on relevant matters arising from the SLT. The Strategic Director (with the support of the Director of Public Health) discusses specific matters arising from the SLT with the Deputy City Mayor (as lead member for both Adult Social Care and Public Health) as part of ongoing management of business. The Strategic Director and Director of Public Health advise both the Chairs of Health Scrutiny and Adult Social Care Scrutiny as to any matters arising from SLT discussions that may be of interest to Scrutiny Commissions as part of the Scrutiny agenda planning process. The Council engages in the SLT as it is a senior officer forum for wide partnership and system development across the health and social care agenda, including but not only limited to matters relating to the Sustainability and Transformation Plan. The SLT supports and enables strategic planning and operational partnership working between health and social care. It supports and drives service improvement work relating to specific care pathways and needs relating to the care and health of the LLR population
QUESTION 2.
On what grounds are STP system Leadership Team meetings taking place in private? We believe these meetings are subject to the 1960 Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) legislation and, as meetings of a joint committee of the CCGs, should be held in public.
RESPONSE - The following response from the Senior Responsible Officer for the Sustainability and Transformation Plan on behalf of the 3 CCGs was not received by the time of the meeting but has been included in these minutes for completeness.
The System Leadership Team (SLT) is primarily an operational management group with representation from the partner organisations across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. Its main purpose is to keep under review the development of the proposals for the plan of the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership for consideration by each of the statutory organisations who are the decision makers. Key decisions relating to any proposed changes to local services are then made in public by the boards and governing bodies of the respective NHS organisations, including both the providers (hospitals) and CCGs (commissioners).
Going forward, to help aid greater transparency, SLT papers will be shared with the BCT patient and public involvement group - which is made up of service users, patient champions and experts by experience. Minutes from the SLT meetings will continue to be presented to each of the CCG Governing Bodies in their public meetings, with these papers accessible through the respective CCG websites.
QUESTION 3
How does the Scrutiny Commission feedback its position on various NHS policies brought before it to the council as a whole?
RESPONSE
The scrutiny commission is part of a wider working of the council. All scrutiny commissions feed into the Overview Select Committee as the parent scrutiny committee, which comprises the Chairs of all the scrutiny commissions and the two members of the opposition. OSC and the other commissions also feed information with regards to their work into the wider Council structure. All Chairs meet regularly with members of the Executive to discuss issues and these can lead to debates at Council, as has happened previously with regards to the STP. All officers present also feed information back via channels of communication as described in the response to question 1. Minutes of all meetings are made public and are available to all Members of the Council.
QUESTION 4
What plans has the Scrutiny Commission for joint scrutiny (with other HOSCs in LLR) of the STP plans and proposals ahead of the final formulation of topics for consultation and consultation documents?
RESPONSE
As was agreed at the meeting on 14th December 2016 of the Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Joint Health Scrutiny Committee, all three authorities agreed to consider elements of the STP separately based on local concerns. It was agreed that once these discussions had occurred for each authority and once information with regards to the public consultation was clear, the committee would reconvene. Prior to this meeting taking place, information on the local issues discussed by each authority would be shared with each other.
In response to Members’ questions on the responses it was noted that:-
a) The date of the LLR Joint Health Scrutiny Committee would be dependent upon the timing of the 2nd draft of the STP being made public.
b) The Deputy City Mayor Rory had written to Chairs of the Health and Wellbeing Boards in Leicestershire and Rutland to urge them to press for the early publication of what currently exists for the STP including the financial re-modelling.
c) That whilst the frustration with the STP process was understood it was preferable to have questions which supported the scrutiny process and did not appear hostile in their intent. There was provision in the constitution to request questions to be reworded if they appeared defamatory or personal.