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The Director of Public Health presented the report which provided an update on the research, development and co-production of a Co-production Strategy for use within Adult Care and Health services and with wider stakeholders. The requirement for a strategy has been highlighted as part of the Care Quality Inspection preparation for Adult Care and Health and represented best practice when working with people who use services, either as individuals or as stakeholder groups. The report outlined the proposals to bring down the Public Health Grant reserves to an acceptable level over a period of three years and ensure the investments were made upfront and the impact was to be monitored. The Chair highlighted that there had been a concern that this Committee would be paying for staff in regeneration. It was clarified that the additionality of staff in line with the Public Health Grant was to be defined to ensure that core staff in regeneration would not be funded with this grant funding. It was reported that there was to be an additional responsibility in the form of the NHS uplift for the Council’s NHS commissioned services which were not previously funded by the Council. There was a small uplift in the public health grant to cover that but the implications of that were still being worked on. Early signs were that the allocated money received would not be sufficient to cover the NHS uplift so a slight adjustment was to be built in. A number of other areas were outlined around fuel poverty, the environmental climate emergency, the positive inclusion programme, tobacco control and the speech and language enhanced parents support.

Members sought clarification to the £200,000 that was allocated to the climate emergency. It was explained that the proposals were not fully worked up yet but officers were looking at what would be the best approach to supplement the work that was already being done. The initial proposal was the creation of an additional post in the Neighbourhoods Team to supplement the work that they were doing but that would depend on whether the additionality could be defined in terms of a public health element.

Members asked whether tobacco control included vapes. The Director of Public Health confirmed that vapes were included in the programme particularly around Trading Standards and explained that there was currently no capacity to carry out test purchasing and restrict the sale of vapes and this was to be part of the programme.

Resolved – That the Director of Public Health be authorised to make effective use of the Public Health Grant Reserves to tackle the identified emerging pressures, in line with the spending proposals, over a three-year period from April 2024 to March 2027, up to a maximum value of £4,500,000.