Venue: Council Chamber - County Hall, Llandrindod Wells
Contact: Stephen Boyd 01597 826374
No. | Item | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Apologies To receive apologies for absence. Minutes: Apologies for absence were received from County Councillors L V Corfield, S C Davies, L Fitzpatrick, J R Jones on other Council business, P E Lewis, S Lewis, MC Mackenzie on other Council business, L Roberts, D Rowlands, K S Silk, J Wilkinson and S L Williams.
The Chair welcomed the Acting Chief Executive Dr Mohammed Mehmet and the Director of Social Services Alison Bulman to their first meeting of Council. He thanked Phil Evans who had completed his appointment as interim Director of Social Services.
|
||||||||||||
Declarations of Interest To receive any declarations of interest from Members relating to items to be considered on the agenda. Minutes: There were no declarations of interest reported. |
||||||||||||
CIW Inspection of Adult Services PDF 553 KB To receive and consider the Care Inspectorate Wales report on Adult Services (attached). A report on the Council’s response will follow. Additional documents: Minutes: Council debated the CIW inspection report on Adult Services in Powys. While CIW had seen evidence that some people received good care and support, high staff morale and a commitment to improving services accompanied by an increase in resources, the report had identified significant concerns in key areas: accessing services; consistent assessments; unacceptable backlog of safeguarding work at screening and enquiry stages; safeguarding systems, delays in providing the services set out in care and support plans; and performance management. The inspectors had concluded that substantial improvements were required.
The Leader and Portfolio Holder for Adult Services accepted the findings of the report. They explained that following the critical report into Children’s Services, Adult Services had conducted its own self-assessment, the findings of which closely aligned with those of the inspectors. By the time of the inspection, work was already well underway to develop an improvement plan with Adult Services being added to the work programme of the Improvement and Assurance Board. The Leader and Portfolio Holder acknowledged the support received from Welsh Government and the WLGA and the work of Scrutiny. The Portfolio Holder considered that the service was well placed to improve and noted that for the first time in 18 months there was a full leadership team in place.
The Director of Social Services outlined the actions taken in response to the CIW recommendations. Of the sixteen recommendations, six were immediate priorities and ten had to be addressed within 12 months.
A number of members expressed concerns that lessons had not been learned from previous inspection reports. Several were critical of the Powys People Direct call centre and cited examples of people having to wait 20 minutes for their calls to be answered and over 40% of calls lost.
The Portfolio Holder for Adult Services acknowledged that there had been failings in the service and he apologised for those failings. He stressed the importance of council as a whole accepting responsibility and accepting the recommendations in the report. He moved the recommendations, seconded by the Leader.
Recommendation 1: by 57 votes to 0 it was
Recommendation 2: by 56 votes to 0 it was
County Councillor Huw Williams moved that: work to improve the service must be accountable to all elected members and subject to ongoing scrutiny and debate at future council meetings. This was seconded by County Councillor David Thomas.
By 37 votes to 19 it was
|
||||||||||||
Children's Services Update: The Second Quarterly Improvement Report for Welsh Government PDF 179 KB To receive an update report on Children’s Services. The Quarter 2 Improvement Report is attached. The Interim Director of Social Services latest monthly report for the Leader and the Chair of the Improvement and Assurance Board will follow. Additional documents:
Minutes: The Portfolio Holder for Young People and Culture and the Head of Children’s Services updated Council on the progress being made in the service. The period between February and April 2018 had seen significant improvements in performance and this had been confirmed by a follow up monitoring inspection by CIW. The financial investment in the service was paying dividends with the recruitment of additional social workers and foster carers.
The Chair of Scrutiny Committee B acknowledged the positive way in which the Head of Service was working with Scrutiny and he was amongst a number of members who asked for the performance data to be made available to all Members. Members were advised that a development day had been arranged for 8 June to instruct them on how to access performance management data.
It was noted Scrutiny members had begun visits to front line teams which both Members and staff had found very beneficial. Members also asked about access to sexual health clinics and mental health services and the transition for young people moving from Children’s Services to Adult Services. The Cabinet was asked to consider what support could be given to care leavers such as an exemption from Council Tax. The Chair of the Audit Committee reminded the Portfolio Holder that he had asked for more information on the Children’s Services budget and he invited her to the Committee to discuss the budget.
The Portfolio Holder noted the points made by Members on performance management data and agreed it should be made more widely available. She also agreed on the points made on the need for young people to have access to mental health and sexual health services and would raise this with the Health Board. She confirmed that the service did compare performance data with other local authorities and that she was be happy to attend Audit Committee. The Portfolio Holder for Finance confirmed that the policy on Council Tax exemptions would be looked at in the next month.
|