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Contact: Wyn Richards 01597 826375
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Apologies To receive apologies for absence. Minutes: There were no apologies for absence. |
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Disclosures of Interest To receive any disclosures of interest by Members relating to items to be considered at the meeting. Minutes: There were no Declarations of Interest from Members relating to items to be considered on the agenda. |
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To receive and consider the decision tracker. Additional documents: Minutes: Documents Considered: · Decision Tracker
Issues Discussed:
Outcomes: · Noted. · Actions as detailed above.
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Risk Management |
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Strategic Risk Register Report Quarter 2, 2022-23 PDF 83 KB To receive and consider the report of the Head of Finance. Additional documents:
Minutes: Documents Considered: · Report of the Head of Finance
Issues Discussed: · The Committee considered the Quarter 3 Report to be considered by Cabinet on 7th March 2023 and was asked to seek assurance on the effectiveness of the arrangements in place for the management of risk. · Further detailed work has continued in relation to strategic and global risks. A detailed session on the Nature and Climate Emergency had been undertaken on 8 February. The Cabinet had received risk and management training and had access to the relevant service risk registers on JCAD. · There are 15 risks on the strategic risk register and all risk owners had provided a summary of progress. · It was proposed to escalate the risk on financial services (£989k fraud risk) and the Property Planning and Public Protection risk on potential power outages. · It was also proposed to request that Cabinet de-escalate the risks relating to Children’s Services and Education. Both risks relate to the management of budget and both risks are currently covered within risk FIN0001. Both risks would continue to be managed within the Service’s own risk registers and any budget risk would be included under FIN0001. · One risk was being suggested to be escalated from the Service Risk Register to the Strategic Risk Register (CS0091 relating to Adults and Children’s Services).
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To receive and consider the report of the Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Transformation. Additional documents: Minutes: Documents Considered: · Report of the Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Transformation
Issues Discussed: · The risk appetite in the report supersedes the Council’s existing one dated July 2019. · The risk appetite is fluid and needs to be regularly reviewed by Cabinet to ensure that the Council is taking account of current situations. · Although there is a risk appetite for programmes and project delivery, individual programmes and projects should consider a further detailed approach if necessary. · In relation to the risk appetite, it was noted that the Council would aim to operate organisational activities at the levels set out in Section 5 of the report. Where the level of risk was higher this should be highlighted using the relevant governance mechanisms. · It was suggested that the colours in Table 5.2 should be removed and add the risk appetite range as set out in Table 5.3. · The Chair welcomed the document as it provided a level of confidence. · The Head of Finance highlighted paragraph 2.4, and by defining the risk appetite across the Council, risks could be better prioritised together with the mitigation and allocation of resources. This also provided a greater consistency for services when considering risks at an individual level.
Outcomes: · Noted.
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SWAP |
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Quarterly Internal Audit Update Report 2022-23 - Quarter 3 PDF 1 MB To receive and consider the report of the Assistant Director, SWAP. Minutes: Documents Considered: · Report of the Assistant Director, SWAP.
Issues Discussed: · This was the report to the end of Quarter 3 – December 2022. · In terms of plans that are delivered by SWAP, there was an indication that coverage was acceptable in terms of the Council’s key risks. · There was a revised planning process underway and SWAP would be considering the Council’s new objectives to ensure alignment to the Council’s objectives and key risks. · Planning of work continues to be agile and SWAP was attending a new corporate fraud forum that had been established and was meeting with the corporate fraud team and assessing the impact of fraud on the Council, and could feed into the risk assessment. · 34 audits had been undertaken and SWAP was on track to deliver the annual plan and opinion. · In terms of assurance, 83% of the work was positive assurance. · In terms of action tracking, there were no outstanding priority 1 and 2 actions for the period so Council is mitigating risks. · Overall an indicative opinion of reasonable was provided with sound levels of internal control.
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SWAP Report - Continuing Health Care PDF 170 KB To receive and consider the SWAP Report in respect of Continuing Health Care together with the Service’s response. Minutes: Documents Considered: SWAP Report – Continuing Health Care. Limited Assurance.
Issues Discussed: · Continuing Health Care (CHC) is a service provided to those leaving hospital who are in need of care. · The key findings of the audit is that there is a national framework but no local operating protocols having been agreed between the Council and the Health Board. · There had been recent improvements but there was a lack of visibility around performance. Therefore it was difficult to tell how well the service was performing in terms of the discharge process. · There were excessive delays and disputes over funding decisions that might have an impact on clients. · There should be greater visibility and monitoring of CHC Health Board debts. · The report was compiled during the Covid period which was likely to have had an impact on service delivery. · There were four priority 2 recommendations, a limited assurance opinion and some significant risks to be addressed.
The Committee was provided with the following contextual information by the Service: · CHC is not necessarily a service which people receive when they leave hospital. · It is a complete package of ongoing care arranged and funded solely by the NHS through Local Health Boards where a client’s needs are primarily health based. CHC can be provided in any setting such as the person’s home or a care home. As it is funded by the NHS this is an entitlement for individuals eligible to receive it. · There is a national continuing care framework (2022) which sets out the arrangements for the NHS to follow in delivering continuing health care in Wales. It sets out the process for the NHS working with partners such as local authorities to assess a person’s health needs and to ensure appropriate care is in place to meet those needs. · In relation to the four actions identified by SWAP: · The Council was working alongside PTHB (Powys Teaching Health Board) to establish a formal operating procedure which would include a disputes resolution protocol. As this is primarily health-led the Council relies on the Health Board for timescales in terms of delivering this work. · To date there was neither an operating nor disputes resolution protocol in place despite efforts by the Council. Extensive comments had been made on a draft of a standard operating protocol sent to the Council in February 2021. Further comments were also provided in March 2021 and further clarification sought since then. This document together with a disputes resolution protocol was awaiting sign off by Powys Teaching Health Board (PTHB). This had been raised with PTHB on a number of occasions. · In terms of Adult Services reviewing its internal monitoring processes, there had been progress and a dedicated CHC team established which tracked all current cases and regular surgeries were being held for adult social services staff. Operational teams were also reminded to advise the CHC team of any multi-disciplinary meetings where primary health needs might be identified. There was also a dedicated CHC email address as a single point of ... view the full minutes text for item 5.2 |
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SWAP Report - Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards PDF 207 KB To receive and consider the SWAP report in respect of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards together with the Service’s response. Minutes: Documents Considered: SWAP Report – Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS). Limited Assurance.
Issues Discussed: · DOLS is the procedure that would deprive an individual of their liberty where they lack capacity and the report was around the assessment of that process. The current report was a follow on report to one undertaken in 2019-20 which identified significant issues. · There had been some improvement in some areas since the previous report but there were still some significant outstanding areas. · Two main areas were identified: · Delivery – there were statutory timescales in place to undertake assessments and the audit identified that there were lengthy delays and timescales were not being met. · The process itself and the Council having to undertake a best interest assessment as part of the process, and the ability to do this. It was determined there was little internal capacity and limited external capacity to undertake these assessments. Therefore the resource needed to undertake these assessments was insufficient. · Two actions were identified, one priority 1 and one priority 2. The audit opinion was a limited assurance.
· The following contextual information and Service update was provided to the Committee: · DOLS was an important part of the Mental Capacity Act. The safeguards ensure that if a person cannot consent to their own care arrangements in a care home or hospital those arrangements are protected checked if it meant that the individual was deprived of their liberty. · Arrangements were checked to ensure that they were necessary and in the person’s best interests. · A peer support group had been established to support the best interest assessors in their role. · The Council was seeking to create ‘best interest assessor’ positions internally but that was challenging due to current capacity within the service. · Payments were being offered to current ‘best interest assessors’ to provide additional hours to reduce the backlog of DOLS registrations whilst the DOLS legislation remained current. · A framework had been developed for overseeing and monitoring the quality assurance and timeliness of assessments allocated to external agencies, independent best interest assessors and Section 12 doctors. · DOLS and mental capacity act resources had been updated on the internal website which provided best practice guidance for staff. · A mental capacity act and DOLS Forum was in place to share learning from cases and promote communication and joint working. · There had been difficulties previously in securing agency staff to undertake this work but the Council was now working with 2 agencies on a regular basis with a dedicated focus to reduce the backlog of DOLS authorisations. An agreement had also been reached with three independent ‘best interest assessors’ on a monthly basis to reduce the number of assessments. · Recent funding from Welsh Government had been utilised to secure an additional internal best interest assessor for 18.5 hours a week on a temporary basis which was to be reviewed. · In terms of total outstanding applications, in January 2022 the total was 357. However, since September 2022 following action being undertaken there was a downward trend in outstanding applications ... view the full minutes text for item 5.3 |
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Audit Wales |
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Corporate Safeguarding Audit Report PDF 838 KB To receive and consider the Audit Wales report in respect of Corporate Safeguarding together with the Council’s response. Additional documents:
Minutes: Documents Considered: · Audit Wales Report – Corporate Safeguarding
Issues Discussed: · This was a follow up report to previous reports presented to the Council in 2014 and 2015. · The Corporate Safeguarding review considered the arrangements and controls which the Council had in place across the Council and the oversight and corporate governance of those arrangements. · The review found that the Council: · did not have proper control of its corporate safeguarding arrangements in place which exposed the Council and its residents to risk. · did not have key mechanisms in place that would assist it with the corporate safeguarding arrangements. · needed to address key governance issues, including publishing a corporate safeguarding policy (although a policy had been subsequently produced) and ensuring the corporate safeguarding group carried out its role in accordance with its own terms of reference, which was not the case at the time of the review. · 11 new recommendations had been made by Audit Wales as set out in the report. The Council had also not met or only partially met the recommendations made in previous reports. The focus for the Council would now be taking forward the new recommendations.
· The Cabinet Member for a Safer Powys advised that he and the Director of Social Services took on their respective responsibilities for corporate safeguarding from July 2022. A number of items had already been taken forward including the adoption of a corporate safeguarding policy and updated terms of reference for the Corporate Safeguarding Group. · Levels of training by councillors and staff has improved. A website for corporate safeguarding had also been launched. · The Director of Social Services welcomed and accepted all of the recommendations in the report. · An action plan had been prepared and was being implemented. This was working corporately across all services including engagement across the Council supported by the Cabinet and Scrutiny. · A cross service working group had also been established. · When the report was published in December 2022, progress had been made against all of the actions and to date many of the actions were completed or in progress. · All these recommendations had been included in the corporate regulatory tracker and would be monitored as part of the quarterly monitoring process.
Action Plan highlights: · Corporate Safeguarding Policy approved by Cabinet – 13 December 2022. · A one page summary guidance was created, following a request by Cabinet. · The Corporate Safeguarding Policy was held on a central repository and would be reviewed and updated on a regular basis. · The Terms of Reference for the Corporate Safeguarding Board were updated and agreed by the Board on 5 December 2022. · Safeguarding landing pages had been created on the Council’s public website and intranet which were launched on 8 February 2023 in advance of the target date of March 2023. Communications and promotion of these websites was to be undertaken. · The Scrutiny Committee had suggested that the Council should have a safeguarding theme per month which would be discussed with the Safeguarding Board. · Discussions would be held with SWAP about an ongoing ... view the full minutes text for item 6.1 |
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Quarter 2 Audit Wales Work Programme and Timetable PDF 549 KB To receive and consider the Audit Wales Quarter 2 Work Programme and Timetable. Additional documents: Minutes: Documents Considered: · Audit Wales Quarter 2 Work Programme and Timetable
Issues Discussed: · The Corporate Safeguarding Report had been considered by the Committee. · The review of Planning Services was being drafted. · Assurance and risk assessment was the ongoing annual engagement work which would feed into specific audit work detailed in the work programme. · The thematic review on unscheduled care was being undertaken across Wales. · The project brief on the thematic review of digital had been completed and was subject to engagement with the Council. · The Scrutiny follow up review would be incorporated into a wider review on corporate governance. · Financial audit work as detailed in the report.
Outcomes: · Noted
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Strategic Asset Review To receive and consider a presentation by the Head of Property, Planning and Public Protection, Gwilym Davies. Minutes: Documents Considered: · Presentation by the Head of Property, Planning and Public Protection
Issues Discussed: · The Council had 639 separately listed land and building assets (2022) · The Cabinet approved an asset management strategy in October 2022 which set out the framework within which the Council’s assets would be appraised, managed and released. · Action Plan: · The first part of the process related to condition assessments and surveys which were to be undertaken over a five year period. · The Service was currently on target to complete 20% of the assessments in 2022-23. In 2023-24 the target was 50%, 2024-25 the target was 80% and by 2025-26 the target was 100% · User reviews and action plans – a more formalised process was to be adopted than previously. The target was that 100% of service areas and tenants would have an annual asset review with action points provided where appropriate in 2023-24 · Reviewing the asset management policy to make sure it is fit for purpose. It was hoped to adopt this by the end of March 2023. · Asset Reviews with each asset or group of assets having a review every 5 years.
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To consider the forward work programme (attached) and consider whether any additional items should be included. Minutes: Documents Considered: · Forward Work Programme
Issues Discussed: · Debt policy to be added to March · Role on corporate safeguarding to be added to the Forward Work programme annually · Self assessment – Friday 3rd March 2023 – face to face meeting at County Hall.
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Exempt Item To consider passing the following Resolution:
RESOLVED to exclude the public for the following item of business on the grounds that there would be disclosure to them of exempt information under category 3 of The Local Authorities (Access to Information) (Variation) (Wales) Order 2007).
The Monitoring Officer has determined that category 3 of the Access to Information Procedure Rules applies to the following item. His view on the public interest test (having taken account of the provisions of Rule 14.8 of the Council's Access to Information Rules) was that to make this information public would disclose information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).
These factors in his view outweigh the public interest in disclosing this information. Members are asked to consider these factors when determining the public interest test, which they must decide when considering excluding the public from this part of the meeting.
Minutes: RESOLVED to exclude the public for the following item of business on the grounds that there would be disclosure to them of exempt information under category 3 of The Local Authorities (Access to Information) (Variation) (Wales) Order 2007).
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Powys Pensions Fund - Comment on 2022 Actuarial Valuation To receive and consider the comment on the 2022 Actuarial Valuation. Minutes: Documents Considered: Comment on the 2022 Actuarial Valuation.
Outcomes: · That the Statement provided the assurance sought by the Committee.
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