To undertake pre-Cabinet scrutiny of the Outline Business Case and Options Appraisal for developing the Integrated Family Support Service for Powys.
Minutes:
Documents:
· Draft Cabinet Report on Developing an Integrated Family Support Service for Powys
· Outline Business Case and Options Appraisal for Developing and Integrated Family Support Service for Powys – v 6
· Situation summary and medium – long term opportunities for commissioning services for children and young people
Scrutiny observations for submission to Cabinet
· Whilst the Outline Business Case and situation summary were made available to scrutiny in good time the Cabinet Report was only provided one day before the meeting and the Impact Assessment had yet to be completed. Whilst it is appreciated that this item is to be considered at Cabinet on 18th September it had been intended to take this item to Cabinet in July and therefore it would be expected that these documents would have been readily available
· The Senior Partnership Manager and Portfolio Holder were able to provide detailed updates throughout the report and it is essential that this information is contained within the report so that the reasons for the recommendations can be understood.
· In particular the following matters need to be addressed:
Case for Change
o The case for change is made based on statutory requirements under the Social Services and Well-Being Act, the findings of the CIW Inspection and a need to tackle adverse childhood experiences. However, no analysis of demand for certain types of support is included and no analysis of any trends in this demand which may indicate that more or less of certain types of support may be needed in different parts of the county
Service Design
o A list of proposed family support services is included at Figure 3 but there is no evidence provided of the success of these interventions to justify the proposals. It was explained that there will be seamless transition between current provision and proposed provision with the existing providers on contracts which have been extended to March 2019 to tie in with any new contract starting in April 2019. It is not clear however from the current performance how successful the current provision of early intervention services is given the continued increase in numbers of Looked After Children
Resources
o This section is incomplete and it was not possible during the meeting to ascertain how much resource was available from Children’s Services or the Health Board.
o It appears a large amount of the funding is accessed from recurring grants. Whilst it appears this has been the case for some years and the service build in break clauses when letting contracts in case the grant is not forthcoming this nevertheless is flagged as a risk to the authority.
o The list of resources includes the Families First Grant of £328,614. This is also included in the sister report on the Integrated Youth Services and clarity is needed to ensure that this grant is not effectively ‘counted twice’.
o The list of resources includes a sum of £200,000 sourced from the Children’s Services Improvement Revenue budget but identified as ‘not currently signed off’. It is not clear if or for how long this funding is available and attention is drawn to this risk.
o The business case needs to be clear as to whether it is intending to provide a service within a financial envelope or whether it is needs led which will necessitate drawing on council resources depending on the level of need which presents. This links to the necessity of designing a service for which there is evidence it is addressing the needs that are presented and can demonstrate measurable improvement.
Options Appraisal and Recommendations
o It is not clear from the report how the ranking has been applied. For example a threat identified for a Strategic Partnership was noted as a ‘limited market of providers willing or able to become partners’ with the rationale for a Strategic Partnership given as ‘Strategic Partner to bring additional resource to Powys and bring skill and expertise’. The meeting revealed there are interested partners and consideration may be given to amending the proposed strategic partnership to enable some smaller local providers to be able to tender for discrete parts of the contract. This fits with the expectation within Vision 2025 that there will be an increase in revenue spend with Powys based suppliers and providers. This needs to be clearly articulated within the Outline Business Case.
o One of the weaknesses identified for the Strategic Partnership was governance. It was explained that the Partnership would be monitored by the CYPP Management Team and Start Well Board. Consideration should be given as to the appropriate place for monitoring performance of this partnership at Member level. Given the impact the work of this partnership intends to have on statutory services it is essential that performance of the partnership is monitored at a level that assures the authority that the funding provided is having the outcomes expected. Detail of the governance arrangements need to be included within the report.
Next steps
o The timeframe in incorrect and requires amendment to reflect appropriate deadlines leading to the commencement of the Strategic Partnership in April 2019. Assurances were given that the deadline of April 2019 was achievable despite the inaccurate dates included in this section
o Assurance is sought that the service has sufficient capacity to be able to take this business case forward to meet these timescales.
Impact Assessment
o This had not been completed and will need to be undertaken before the Outline Business Case is submitted to Cabinet.
Recommendation:
· That the Portfolio Holder have regard to the above observations and amend the Outline Business Case and Cabinet Report on the Integrated Family Service to address such observations.
In addition, the Senior Partnership Officer confirmed she would provide Members with the current number of young people Not in Education, Employment or Training.
Concern was also expressed that whilst Welsh Government are encouraging greater use of pooled budgets progress on this will be delayed until a decision is made on the design of this service.
Supporting documents: