To undertake pre-Cabinet scrutiny of the Outline Business Case and Options Appraisal for the Integrated Youth Support and Emotional Well-Being Service for Powys.
Minutes:
Documents:
· Draft Cabinet Report on Developing an Integrated Youth Support and Well-Being Service for Powys
· Outline Business Case and Options Appraisal for Developing and Integrated Youth Support and Well-Being Service for Powys – v 6
· School based universal mental wellbeing interventions for children aged 10-18
· Together for Children and Young People – Best Practice Guide of interventions in Wales to improve the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people
· Public Health Wales Evidence Summary – Mental well-being among children and young people
Scrutiny observations 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, a need to tackle adverse childhood experiences, the curriculum for Wales and Together for Children and Young People. However, no evidence of demand (volume or type of service needed) and demand trends is included which would help define what service is required.
Service Design
o This section appears to be lacking narrative when compared to the sister report on the Integrated Family Support Service. Figure 3 outlines proposed service offers and whilst supporting documents embedded at the end of the paper assess the effectiveness of interventions no detail is provided regarding which interventions it is proposed to use, and some of the schemes evaluated relate to primary school age children which are not the target age group of this proposed service.
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. The detail within the SWOT analysis is broadly the same as that in the sister report on Integrated Family Support Services and appears to be written from the perspective of the Family Service. For example threats identified under the ‘in-house’ option are identified as ‘adverse response from the wider third sector…, TUPE of existing staff in providing partner…., tight timescale for transfer of staff’. However, it was explained in the meeting that this service is largely provided ‘in-house’ and thus these threats are incorrect. This reports needs to clearly address this difference.
o The overall option ranking is different from the other report and the reasons for this need to be clearly articulated. It was explained in the meeting that at present Family Support is largely commissioned and Youth Support is largely in-house which makes it easier for the Youth Support to remain in-house. If this is the reasoning behind the different conclusions drawn in the two reports then this needs to be clearly explained.
o If the recommendation that this service remains in-house are approved this will require different governance arrangements and these 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 new delivery arrangements in December 2018. Assurances were given that the deadline of December 2018 was achievable.
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 Youth Support and Emotional Well-Being Service to address such observations.
Supporting documents: