Minutes:
The Committee welcomed the Corporate Director, Adults and Children, Head of Workforce as well as the Portfolio Holders for Workforce, Adult Services and Children’s Services.
Discussion:
· The Corporate Director had been invited to discuss Workforce Development in Health and Social Care
· Risk WO021 was wider than just social care
· The adult care sector relies on manual labour which is not particularly well paid. The cost and availability of staff may not be sufficient to meet future, increasing demand.
· Transformation is key
· If the risk is not mitigated people’s needs may not be met in the future
· A variety of processes are being trialled.
· The Authority has a Workforce Board, but this has been suspended during the pandemic
· There is a high vacancy rate in the Head of Workforce’s team
· A Workforce Cell has been established to ensure staff are being redeployed effectively
· Currently there are 15 apprentices in social care with 15 further career grade apprentices since January 2020. Some of these have been recruited to permanent posts.
· The service is currently working with care leavers to become apprentices
· 19 placements have been made under the Kickstart Scheme – there have only been a few referrals from the Department of Work and Pensions and further work is being undertaken to ascertain why take up is low
· A bid has been submitted to Academy of Wales Graduate Scheme for February 2022
· The ‘Grow Our Own’ programme for social workers has led to 10 qualifying in the last three years. The service is supporting 15 more to train and qualify.
· Within Children’s Services there are 36 vacancies and 34 agency workers employed. Agency staff had reduced to around 20 pre pandemic which had been a significant reduction. There is an expectation that face-to-face meetings are conducted with children on the Child Protection Register and there has been resistance from some agency workers to undertake that role. Staffing pressures are currently in the south of the county, but these could arise in any part of the county.
· The Powys Pledge has been launched to support the care sector
· Continued transformation of services is key
· Members asked if BREXIT had had affected recruitment – the Corporate Director reported that there had been no significant impact in social care. She also chairs a weekly Wales wide meeting and reports that there were food shortages in care homes were unfounded
· The Committee asked whether a social worker was contracted to work for a specific length of time once qualified as a social worker through the Grow Our Own Scheme – there were no timescales in place, but this was subject to review. The service was assessing how to support newly qualified social workers. The Corporate Director aimed for the Authority to be the employer of choice.
· WCCIS was a major issue and is being addressed as best as it can within contractual arrangements. This has been cited as a cause of low staff morale.
· The Portfolio Holder for Adult Services also noted that there were complexities to consider as it was not yet clear what the post covid era may look like. There had been a sharp decline in those going into residential care and an increase in more intensive packages of care at home – it remains to be seen if this pattern will be sustained.
Outcomes:
· The Committee was assured that appropriate mitigation was in place to address Strategic Risk WO0021
WCCIS
· The Corporate Director briefed the Committee on issues with the WCCIS system which is the data base for social care and holds all care and support plans.
· It is a national shared system for Health Boards and Local Authorities
· There have been significant concerns for 9 months such as planned and unplanned outages and slow system performance.
· Its underperformance is impacting on staff morale and the recording of delivery of statutory targets
· IT Services manage the package but is of such concern that the Corporate Director is now attending national groups dealing with it
· Options were currently being considered alongside the implications
· The position is untenable, and the Corporate Director does not have assurance that the system is fit for purpose
· A briefing note had been prepared for the Chief Executive and this would be circulated to Members of the Committee for information.
· It was reported that the Health and Care Scrutiny Committee had also been briefed on the issue and were also concerned.
· Vulnerable people could be put at risk through the failure of the system
· Audit Wales were also aware of the problem and continue to monitor through their audit and risk arrangements
Outcomes:
· The Committee were not assured around the risk associated with WCCIS but supported the actions taken by the Corporate Director