Members are asked to consider whether they have any disclosable pecuniary interests and/or any other relevant interest in connection with any item(s) on this agenda and, if so, to declare them and state the nature of the interest.

Members are reminded that they should also declare whether they are subject to a party whip in connection with any item(s) to be considered and, if so, to declare it and state the nature of the whipping arrangement.

Councillor Anderson declared a personal interest in agenda item 6 – North West Specialised Commissioning Planning and Engagement by virtue of his employment, and agenda item 2 – Council Referral – Notice of Motion ’Becoming a Dementia Friendly Council’ by virtue of his appointment as a Dementia Friends Champion.

Councillor Roberts declared a personal interest by virtue of her appointment on the Management Committees of Arch Initiatives.

To approve the accuracy of the minutes of the last meeting of the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee held on 8 July 2014.

RESOLVED:

That the Minutes of the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee held on 8 July 2014 be approved.

The Chair indicated that Agenda Item 7- Traded Services had been deferred to a future meeting to allow officers further time to develop proposals.

Also, a request had been received for Agenda Item 10 – Families and Wellbeing Dashboard to be moved up the agenda. Therefore, it was agreed that this item be taken after Agenda Item 4 - Future Council.

At the meeting of the Council held on 14 July 2014 (minute 17 refers), the attached Notice of Motion proposed by Councillor T Anderson and seconded by Councillor T Smith was referred by the Mayor to this Committee for consideration.

In accordance with Standing Order 7 (6), Councillor Anderson has been invited to attend the meeting in order for him to be given an opportunity to explain the Motion.

The Chair advised that at the meeting of the Council held on 14 July 2014 (minute 17 refers), the following Notice of Motion proposed by Councillor T Anderson and seconded by Councillor T Smith was referred by the Mayor to this Committee for consideration.

In accordance with Standing Order 7 (6), Councillor Anderson had been invited to attend the meeting in order for him to be given an opportunity to explain the Motion. In accordance with Standing Order 7 (5), any recommendation from the Committee in relation to the Notice of Motion would be referred to the Council. Any debate at Council should take place upon the recommendation of the Committee and there should be no separate debate upon the motion itself.

Councillor Anderson asked the Committee to support the Motion for this Authority to become a “dementia friendly” Council and offers its support to the Alzheimer’s Society.

Member gave their full support to the Motion and indicated that it was vital that all officers and Members undertake the appropriate training to enable them share best practices.

BECOMING A ‘DEMENTIA FRIENDLY’ COUNCIL

Council:

1. Recognises that dementia is becoming a serious issue in society and is alarmed that one in three people over 65 will be diagnosed with dementia.
2. Applauds the great work that the Alzheimer’s Society is doing in aiming to get 1 million people trained as a ‘Dementia Friend’ by the end of the year.
3. Notes Dementia Friends is a national programme that takes a maximum of 1 hour educating people on dementia and its effects.

Council believes that this is a worthy programme and the Council can play its part.

Therefore Council requests the Chief Executive to:

a.  Encourage Council staff to become Dementia Friends (and to undertake relevant training as soon as practicably possible).

b.  Write to the Alzheimer’s Society requesting advice on how best to assist them in rolling out training across Wirral.

c.  Allow for Council property, where suitable, feasible and within reason, to be used free of charge by those delivering Dementia Friends Training.

d.  Encourage all Elected Members to become a ‘Dementia Friend’.

e.  Invite key Council staff members to become ‘Dementia Friend Champions’ thereby enabling the roll out of Dementia Friends Training referred to.

The Motion was carried unanimously.

RESOLVED: That

(1)  the Council be advised that the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee fully supports the Notice of Motion in relation to Becoming a Dementia Friendly Council; and

(2)  the Chief Executive be requested to implement a training programme for all staff and elected members.

Proposed Arrangements for scrutiny of options - update .

The Committee considered a briefing note circulated at the meeting which provided a summary of the discussion and agreement at a meeting of the Policy and Performance Committee Chairs and Spokespersons on 3rd September.  The meeting was convened to agree a common approach across all P&P Committees to scrutinising the proposals that come forward from the Future Council Programme when these are published in September.

The note indicated that at the meeting, Members proposed an approach based on the October 2013 Review and consistent with the standard template for scrutiny review task and finish work. This approach would ensure that each committee operates independently but also delivered a consistent outcome from its scrutiny of the budget options based on the following principles:

·  A task and finish approach is adopted with the three Policy and Performance Committees setting up a scrutiny panel to review the options that fall under their remit.

·  Each committee to determine the number of Members on its panel and the number of sessions required.

·  The panel should have an initial scoping meeting once the budget options are published to agree which options they wish to scrutinise and who they want to speak to i.e. Council Officers / external advisors.

·  The panel should determine the preferred days/times for their Q and A sessions i.e. full evidence day, or a number of workshop sessions. 

·  Cabinet leads should be invited to observe sessions.

·  In line with all task and finish scrutiny work, notes will be taken and a report with recommendations will be taken back to full committee for discussion and approval.

The approach proposed was endorsed by all the Members present. 

The Chair indicated that it was proposed that the approach to be taken by this Committee was that Members would be asked to participate in the Task and Finish Groups, a report from which would be submitted to this Committee for further discussion in November. The Chair suggested that the Chair and Vice-Chair and Party Spokespersons meet to make the final arrangements. 

A Member raised concerns in relation to the approach agreed by the Co-ordinating Committee to hold discussions in private within a task and finish group setting to enable all representatives from the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee to participate which they felt would add value to the discussions to be held.

A Member further commented that they agreed that these meetings should be held in public not private to show transparency and if the Committee needed to excluded the Press and Public due to information of a sensitive nature being disclosed they could do so within the rules of the Local Government Act 1972.

Following discussion on the item Councillor Clements suggested an amendment to the proposals and moved the following motion which was duly seconded.

‘That the task and finish approach be not adopted and that meetings to discuss the budget options within our remit be held in public with all Members and representatives of the Family and Wellbeing Policy and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.

The Committee considered the report of the Strategic Director of Families and Wellbeing and the Director of Public Heath/Director of Policy and Performance which provided an update in relation to the 2014/15 performance of the Families and Wellbeing and Public Health Directorates against the delivery of their Directorate Plans for 2014/15 whilst also providing an update of current performance (as at 31st July 2014) against the 2014/15 Directorate Plans.

The report translated the priorities set out in the Directorate Plans into a coherent and measurable set of performance outcome measures and targets. Members were requested to consider the details of the report and highlight any issues.

The Directorate Plan 2014/15 Performance Report set out performance against 57 outcome measures for 2014/15, 23 were rated green, 4 were rated amber and 6 were rated red whilst 24 were currently unrated. The 6 measures rated red had action plans which referred to:

·  NHS Health Checks – Take Up

·  Smoking Quitters (4 weeks)

·  Proportion of opiate drug users that left drug treatment successfully who do not re-present to treatment within 6 months

·  Timeliness of Adoptions, within 12 months of decision date

·  Became Looked After to Adoption Timescales in days

·  Average monthly bed days lost due to delayed transfers of care per 100,000

In relation to the take up of Health Checks, the Head of Public Health indicated that the department would continue to promote the use of the NHS Health Check Clinical template by GP practices to improve the accurate recording of activity; support GP practices and review the current data extraction and collation process with action to ensure data was submitted on time.

In relation to smoking quitters, the Head of Public Health indicated that there were a number of targeted initiatives being put in place to promote the service and support national health promotion campaigns such as ‘Stoptober’.

In relation to E-Cigarettes, The Head of Public Health indicated that these had attracted very mixed views nationally as to whether or not these were actually helpful or harmful to smoking quitters.

The Chief Executive of Wirral Community Trust indicated that as stop smoking services were commissioned from the Trust they would do their best to ensure that they met their contractual arrangements and offer assistance to the Local Authority to ensure this target improved.

The Deputy Director of Operations, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership Trust commented that all partners had a responsibility to support this issue and indicated that at their in-patient unit (Springview) this was now totally non smoking and support was offered to those in the workforce that sought help to quit.

In relation to the proportion of opiate drug users that left drug treatment successfully who did not re-present to treatment within 6 months, the Director of Public Health indicated that the new contract which had not yet been awarded was designed to refresh and re-energise the system and bring new ideas and impetus to the challenge. The new contract was to be mobilised from October  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

The Committee considered two papers submitted by NHS England, Cheshire Warrington and Wirral Area Team in relation to Oral Surgery Dental Services: Paper for Local Authorities Overview and Scrutiny Committee’ and the ‘Community Dental Services: Paper for Local Authorities Overview and Scrutiny Committee’.

The papers set out the requirement of NHS England to re-procure the service contracts over the coming months.

It was reported that the procurement process was about to commence and prospective bidders would be submitting their proposals in due course. The commissioners intend to procure services that were almost identical to those that were already in place. The intention was subsequently to undertake an in-depth dental service review, involving all stakeholders and leading to bespoke dental contracts designed to address the dental agenda including inequalities.

The final form of the contracts associated with this interim re-procurement exercise have yet to be decided and will depend upon how providers respond to the bidding process. However, the service specification had been written in such a way that the anticipation was that material change to existing contracts would be minimal.

A communications and engagement plan had been developed and a series of stakeholder events was anticipated and these would go on throughout and beyond the procurement process. It was anticipated that Local Authority representatives would be invited to participate in the contract evaluation process.

Ms Kerry Davis Business Manager, Cheshire, Warrington and Wirral Area Team, NHS England introduced the report and indicated that in relation to waiting times for non –urgent cases these would be no longer than four weeks, urgent cases would been seen more quickly. This would be written into the service specification of the contracts.

Ms Davis indicated that within the service specifications the levels of urgent or non-urgent was clearly defined, however this would be monitored to ensure that the correct referrals were being made.

RESOLVED:

That Ms Davis be thanked for her presentation and report

To receive a presentation from Andrew Crawshaw, NHS England.

The Committee considered a presentation from NHS England regarding North West Specialised Commissioning Planning and Engagement.

Mr Richard Freeman, NHS England gave a brief presentation on the priorities for specialised services, the presentation outlined the principles of commissioning; guiding principles for planning; current commissioning arrangements; decision making; national context for 2014/15 and beyond; taskforce workstreams; why change is needed; outline of the significant national variation in vascular procedures and mortality rates in cardiac care.

RESOLVED:

 That Mr Freeman be thanked for his informative presentation.

The Committee considered the reports of the Director of Children’s Services and Director of Adult Social Services in relation to the Children’s Safeguarding Annual Report.

The report indicated that Working Together to Safeguard Children defined that the Independent Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCB) were required to publish an annual report on the effectiveness of child safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the local area.

  The annual report for the Wirral Safeguarding Children’s Board (WSCB) 2013-14 is presented in two sections; the report looking over the past 12 months and the business plan looking forward over the next 12 months.  In Section 1 the WSCB annual report sets out the priority areas for 2013-14, the individual targets within those priorities and the progress made. This included an assessment of what remains to be done.

Section 1 also included the main findings from the Section 11 safeguarding audit undertaken by individual organisations, a summary of and the lessons learnt from SCR’s and other reviews, headline performance information and reports which reflect and assess how the WSCB had fulfilled its responsibilities.

Section 2 of the report sets out the business plan for 2014-15 and detailed the priority areas and work to be undertaken through the WSCB over the next 12 months.

The Committee further considered the report of the Director of Adult Social Services in relation to the Safeguarding Adults Annual Report for 2012-14.

The annual report considered the work of the Wirral Safeguarding Adults Partnership Board (SAPB) over the last two years.  This included how partner agencies work together to protect the safety of vulnerable adults. The report covered national developments with regard to safeguarding adults, the Board’s role and governance arrangements and the work of its sub groups. The report included information on safeguarding activity and outlines the contribution partners have made in their own organisation, to assure themselves that safeguarding practices are in line with procedures and best practice. The report provides the key objectives going forward for  2014/15.

The Corporate Safeguarding Manager introduced the reports and gave the Committee a presentation outlining the role and structure of the Safeguarding Boards and its sub-committees; progress against priorities; key activities and priorities 2013-14; source of safeguarding adults 2012/13 and  2013/14: Adult safeguarding Unit and the SAPB Business Plan priorities for 2014/15.

The Corporate Safeguarding Manager indicated that in relation to safeguarding children, the implications and findings of the Rotherham enquiry were being carefully considered by each local authority in Wirral, Children’s Services were scheduling focus groups with young people, social work staff and partners to establish what is effective in current practices and identify how improvements can be made. At a recent meeting, Taxi drivers had expressed their support in this tackling this issue.

In response to a Member, The Corporate Safeguarding Manager indicated that nationally there had been an increase in those children subjected to a Child Protection Plan and the Department continued to work closely with families and professionals and also made changes to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21.

The Committee considered the report of the Chair of the Committee, updating on the progress and the activity proposed for this Committee in relation to its agreed Work Programme.

A meeting with the Chair, Vice-Chair and Spokespersons had been held to discuss the work programme and prioritise its workload; this would enable the agendas to be more manageable and enable the Committee to focus on the big issues.

In relation to reviews, it was reported that there would be reviews on Safeguarding and the future council budget options. The review on Domestic Violence would be undertaken as soon as practicable.

A Member requested that the Review on health inequalities be done as soon as possible.

RESOLVED:

That the Work Programme be noted.