Members are asked to consider whether they have personal or prejudicial interests in connection with any item(s) on this agenda and, if so, to declare them and state what they are.

Members were asked to consider whether they had personal or prejudicial interests in connection with any item(s) on this agenda and, if so, to declare them and state what they were.

No such declarations were made.

To receive the minutes of the special meeting of the Committee held on 23 September 2009.

The Director of Law, HR and Asset Management presented the minutes of the special meeting of the Committee held on 23 September 2009.

The Chair referred to a number of e-mails which had been sent to her from members of the public in relation to a wide range of issues and comments that they believed should have been recorded in the minutes. The Chair proposed that the minutes be amended to include the following matters –

·  An allegation raised by Mr Morton of hardship suffered by a tenant with learning disabilities who had to seek assistance from the Welfare Fund to purchase clothing, due to the financial impact of the ‘special charging policy’ at Bermuda Road, Curlew Way and Edgehill Road in Moreton.

·  Concern expressed by Members in relation to the report to the Social Services Committee on 3 September 1997, ‘Report on Future Services for People with Learning Disabilities’, coming to light so late in the audit investigation process.

·  A quote by Mr Morton from a February 2004 e-mail, which he alleged clearly showed that two senior managers in Adult Social Services were aware that the ‘special charging policy’ was unfair and that the domiciliary care charging policy should have applied since 1997.

·  An allegation by Mr Morton that he had been the victim of bullying, whilst employed by the Council.

Resolved – That the minutes of the special meeting held on 23 September 2009 be amended to include those matters now referred to and that they be re-submitted to the next meeting of the Committee for approval.

Further to minute 23 (23 September 2009), the Chief Internal Auditor presented a report which addressed the Special Charging Policy applied to service users residing at "in house" Supported Living Units. The Committee considered the report in conjunction with the report elsewhere on the agenda of the Director of Adult Social Services ‘Charging Arrangements for Supported Living in Wirral 1997 to 2003’ (see minute 43 post).

Information had been reviewed from a number of sources including the Audit Commission's PIDA Report, Mr Morton's grievance, and documents within the Department of Adult Social Services. The Audit Commission was made aware of the documents reviewed by Internal Audit and was not aware of any additional documents relevant to the investigation. In response to a question from a Member, the Director of Law, HR and Asset Management confirmed that he had contacted Mr Morton’s solicitor, to seek the views of Mr Morton and to request his assistance in relation the audit investigation. The Director had also requested the co-operation of Mr Morton in relation to his investigation of Mr Morton’s allegation of bullying (Cabinet minute 137 (24 September 2009) refers). However, to date, no response had been received from Mr Morton, or his solicitor, in relation to either matter. A Member expressed the view that the report of the Chief Internal Auditor was incomplete without the views of Mr Morton being included within it and that its consideration should be deferred to allow time for consultation with Mr Morton to be undertaken.

In order to assess if the Special Charging Policy was "unreasonable", enquiries were made to the Directors of all northern Adult Social Services with a copy to the Chief Internal Auditors of the same Authorities concerning the charges levied by them between 1997 and 2003 for "in house" supported living service users. The format and content of the Questionnaire and letter had been agreed with the Director of Adult Social Services and the Audit Commission. Over 50 authorities were consulted from the North West, the Midlands and Yorkshire; all were given reminders, but only 11 replies had been received, all from North West Authorities. Analysis of the survey of other local authority's charges was difficult to use to make comparisons as there were only 11 survey responses. Some authorities charged on an hourly rate or a sliding scale whereas Wirral charges were based on income. Depending on the hours of care provided, some charges were comparable with Wirral's and the maximum charge of one approximated to Wirral's average for the period 1997/1998 to 2002/2003, which was £78. The approximate average for the other authorities was £45 and some of those who made comments on Wirral's charging policy were critical of the level and considered it high.

Relevant documents from the Department of Adult Social Services (DASS), e-mails and committee reports had been reviewed to ascertain if there was evidence that officers had information that could have indicated the charges were unreasonable. Further discussions and enquiries were made with DASS  ...  view the full minutes text for item 42.

The Director of Adult Social Services provided to the Committee his professional comments and views on the policies and practices with regard to Supported Living which were in place in Wirral during the period 1997 – 2003. His report was intended to complement both that of the Chief Internal Auditor ‘Adult Social Services – Charging Policy – Service Users Residing at “In-House” Supported Living Units During the Period 1997 to 2003’ (see minute 42 ante) and his report elsewhere on the agenda dealing with the wider matters raised in the PIDA (see minute 44 post).

He commented that in considering the 1997 Charging Policy, the context of the time needed to be understood. To enable people to stay in their own homes, the concept of ‘supported living’ was being developed and, as Charging for Residential Accommodation Guide (CRAG) could not apply, it being limited to residential placement, councils faced a conundrum of how and how much to charge. Without any clear national guidance a plethora of different charging arrangements arose throughout the country. In May 2000, the Audit Commission produced an extensive document ‘Charging with Care’ which considered the range of different charging arrangements and how ‘reasonableness’ should be interpreted. It led in turn, to the first comprehensive guidance covering all non residential charges – Fair Charging, issued in November 2001.

The Director indicated that the policy adopted in Wirral in 1997 would have been written to address the particular position of people moving from a residential home, Esher House, into their own tenancies. Although it was inflexible and did not take as full an account of all people’s needs as would have been desirable it was quite clear that it was not the intention of the Council at that time to disadvantage those individuals. Rather, the Council was seeking to make an improvement in their lives and enable them to have greater independence than would have been the case had they remained in residential accommodation. He expressed the view that he did not consider, again within the context of the time, that the policy could have been regarded as being so “unreasonable” as to question its legality.

Between 1999 and 2002, the Department had been put into Special Measures and clearly, matters of internal administration and governance lay at the heart of the problems which led to that designation. For whatever reason, the policy adopted by the Council in 1997 was not applied consistently to subsequent Supported Living places that were being established. It was possible to surmise that this may have arisen from confusion at the time of Special Measures; or it may have arisen from a perception that the needs of service users in other settings were very different and that the 1997 policy was inappropriate; or, quite likely, a combination of both. The former residents of Esher House had high levels of need which required 24 hours support and the cost of it would have exceeded the contributions provided. Other service users moving into other supported  ...  view the full minutes text for item 43.

The Director of Adult Social Services provided an update on the actions undertaken by the Department of Adult Social Services (DASS) in response to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) report produced by the Audit Commission. He set out the five broad actions required by the PIDA report and commented that progress had been made through a series of sub actions, most of which had been completed as outlined in an action plan appended to his report. In addition to the Audit Commission Report, an Internal Audit Report dated 13 March 2008 identified seven broad actions in relation to the PIDA, all of which had been completed by 28 November 2008. He reported also that a further three recommendations by Internal Audit were endorsed by the Committee on 4 November 2008 (minute 37 refers) and he set out the departmental response to each.

The Director indicated that his report referred to actions that had been completed by January 2009, at which point his report was delayed whilst the investigation into audit and disciplinary matters was undertaken. Actions completed since January 2009 included a financial Review of all people supported by independent sector providers and a value for money appraisal of existing domiciliary care arrangements.

Although most of the actions set to respond to issues highlighted by the PIDA had been completed, the Director provided an explanation in relation to the following, which were listed in the appendix to his report as “ongoing” –

·  Review all LD People who Use Services (AC R4)

·  Review current Domiciliary Care contract in terms of the personalisation agenda and context of individual budgets (ACR2)

He reported also that the department currently had 257 people supported by 26 accredited supported living providers and, in Wirral there were a further 20 accredited providers with whom no people were currently placed by DASS. Since the monitoring process was launched in January 2009, the Contracts Monitoring Team had completed 10 spot check inspections and 9 full inspections, most of which had been carried out jointly with a seconded officer from the Supported Living Team. He indicated that following each inspection an action plan was agreed with the Provider and its implementation monitored, with follow up visits being arranged where appropriate.

However, contract monitoring and quality control was also a matter for future work in the context of broader developments in the transformation/ personalisation agenda. These included the role and place of Wirral’s Local Involvement Network (LINk), which had a statutory role to monitor the quality of provision across health and social care. In turn, as the new contracting approach was developed, expectations upon providers and some more comprehensive person centred arrangements would be developed and would be the subject of further reports.

The Director commented that each of the reports on the Committee agenda were due to be considered by the Health and Well Being Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 10 November 2009.

Resolved –

(1)  That the report be noted.

(2)  That this Committee  ...  view the full minutes text for item 44.