Agenda and draft minutes

At this point in the meeting, Members are asked to declare:

·        any personal interests not included on the Register of Interests

·        any prejudicial interests or

·        any disclosable pecuniary interests

which they may have in respect of business on this agenda.

At this point in the meeting, Members were asked to declare any personal interests not included on the Register of Interests, any prejudicial interests or any disclosable pecuniary interests in relation to business on the agenda. None were declared.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meetings held on 15 January 2019 and the 12 February 2019.

The Chair informed the committee that he was not happy with the style of minutes and would not be signing them as a correct record. A majority of Members agreed that the minutes did not show enough detail and were keen to support the Chair.

Therefore, the minutes of the meetings held on 15 January 2019 and 12 February 2019 were not signed.

At this point in the meeting, members of the public who have registered their wish to speak regarding an item on the agenda or an issue within the Committee’s remit can do so. The deadline for registering is 5:00 pm on Monday 11 March 2019.

Filming, Recording or Webcasting Meetings

Please note that, subject to available resources, this meeting will be filmed and webcast, or recorded, including any registered public speakers who have given their permission. This broadcast can be viewed at: http://www.york.gov.uk/webcasts.

Residents are welcome to photograph, film or record Councillors and Officers at all meetings open to the press and public. This includes the use of social media reporting, i.e. tweeting.  Anyone wishing to film, record or take photos at any public meeting should contact the Democracy Officer (whose contact details are at the foot of this agenda) in advance of the meeting.

The Council’s protocol on Webcasting, Filming & Recording of Meetings ensures that these practices are carried out in a manner both respectful to the conduct of the meeting and all those present.  It can be viewed at: http://www.york.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/11406/protocol_for_webcasting_filming_and_recording_of_council_meetings_20160809.pdf

It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

This report analyses the latest performance for 2018/19 and forecasts the financial outturn position by reference to the service plans and budgets for all of the services falling under the responsibility of the Corporate Director of Health, Housing & Adult Social Care.

Members received the Quarter 3 Finance and Performance report for Health, Housing and Adult Social Care.

Officers informed the committee that there was a discrepancy between the table shown on page 19 and paragraph 3 of the report.  The figure of £830k was the correct figure regarding mitigations.

In response to Members’ questions regarding whether anything would be approached differently with the budget for 2019/20, officers stated that the bulk of the overspend within the directorate sat with Adult Social Care. The officer added that an additional £4 million pounds of funding was being attributed to Adult Social Care in the budget for 2019/20 with a particular focus on counteracting contract price inflation, the two home closures and demographic growth, particularly picking up the issue of young people transitioning from Children’s Services to Adult Services.

The officer also noted that the council has established a service risk fund as a one off budget of 800k for the purpose of services coming forward with invest to save proposals.

Members asked officers to elaborate on the missed savings of £227k in the learning disability working age residential budget. Officers explained that these savings were still expected but due to delays in starting some initiatives in this area, these savings would hopefully be delivered in 2019.

Members expressed concern regarding not recruiting to posts as a potential mitigation and were worried that undue pressure may be applied to services to not recruit to vacant posts that need filling. Officers stated that this would be a minority of posts and examples include where the authority may have recruited with temporary posts which come at a higher cost to the authority. Officers also added that whenever a vacancy presents itself, it is an opportunity to consider that post and scrutinise whether it could be managed differently.

Members questioned the statistics on the percentage of the population that were offered, and subsequently took up, health checks. Officers informed the committee that this was an area for concern. However, it was also noted that the context to these statistics was important. A health check was only offered once every 5 years to the eligible population (in York c. 55,000) and these will be staggered across the 5 year contract. The Director of Public Health did note that performance in this area was poor and that it was a concern.

In response to member questions regarding smoking and alcohol in pregnant mothers, officers stated that:

-         Statistics on smoking are based purely on answers given to midwives and that no data was collected regarding drinking during pregnancy.

-         The most recent trends relating to alcohol related illnesses across the city were worsening and that this was an area of concern for Public Health.

Members questioned officers on whether it was perhaps necessary to budget for exceptional placement cases within the Adult Social Care system, with one particular case costing over £200k and whether the two home closures could have been budgeted for. The Officer stated that York is  ...  view the full minutes text for item 75.

This report outlines the work that has been delivered through the Safer York Partnership against the Community Safety Strategy and is the year end report for 2018-19.

Members received the bi-annual report outlining the work that has been delivered through the Safer York Partnership. The Head of Community Safety highlighted some key areas of the report and opened the discussion for Member questions.

Members were interested to know how successful the operation had been to reduce discarded needles in the city centre. Officers stated that it had been quite some time since any discarded needles had been reported in the City Centre. It was also noted that the close joint working between the BID rangers and the Authority had been a key factor in this improvement.

In response to Member questions regarding the busking and associated acts of Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB), officers stated that there had been an increase in evening buskers and large groups ‘high jacking’ buskers’ microphones and causing disruption. However,  work had begun with a group of buskers and businesses to produce a code of conduct for busking in the city centre. It was noted that any curfew on busking would be difficult to enforce legally and a more reasonable approach was necessary, dealing with individual issues as and when they occur.

Members asked a number of questions regarding dog fouling, fly tipping and the potential use of covert surveillance to catch perpetrators. Officers stated that uniformed officers have a difficult task in this respect as perpetrators will often stop or not do the action when a uniformed officer was present. However, it was noted that the best way to challenge this was for the community to provide information to the authority and subsequently non-uniformed officers can be deployed in areas at the correct times. Officers also stated that the option of using covert CCTV (as a local authority) was more complicated and resource intensive than it may seem from the outside however work had progressed on this front and it was a potential addition in the not too distant future.

Officers promised to provide the committee with further information regarding statistics of cyclists who have been penalised for not having lights on their cycles, as they did not have the information to hand.

In response to Member questions regarding counter-terrorism, officers noted that the bollards in place around the city centre are not for counter-terrorism purposes. The process for putting in more physical security capable of preventing a dangerous vehicle was well underway and was currently being consulted on.

Members were interested to hear more about statistics regarding County Lines and associated Violent Crime. Officers highlighted that it was a difficult piece of analysis, due to the way in which data was recorded, to conduct and that they felt the best use of their resources was to attempt to tackle the issue as best they can.

Finally, Members and Officers discussed the best way to put out more positive messages to the public in regard to the safety of the city centre for residents, highlighting the good work that has been done in this area.

This paper has been written to support an initial discussion on the approaches to health and social care integration, with examples of what is happening in York to join up care and support for people who need it.

Members received a report introducing the approach the Health and Social Care integration to help support an initial discussion. The Assistant Director for Joint Commissioning introduced the report, highlighting some challenges and areas of progress and invited questions from Members.

Members were interested to know whether there were examples of joint budgets within our system as this would be the main indicator of progress from an integration perspective. The Assistant Director of Joint Commissioning highlighted her role is the embodiment of joint working and joint budgets as is the Better Care Fund, with both jointly funded by the Council and CCG. The officer stated that they are making progress and there are many areas of work where we are working in partnership with colleagues from different organisations. The officer also stated that the authority will continue to be challenged to bring more budgets and projects into joint management.

The officer added that the Better Care Fund is the main way in which budgets are aligned and this year that is worth more than £17 million, however nationally, Council’s and the CCG’s still need to be accountable for that expenditure. The officer also highlighted examples in Local Area Co-ordination and Community Facilitation of the progress that is being made in this area, noting that there had been reductions in the numbers of people that might need a care assessment. It was also noted that many of the performance indicators are now showing as neutral, where as previously they were negative.

Members were in agreement that this should be an area in which a future committee begins a review and it was also suggested that a development and training day could be provided to help Members understand this issue in more detail.

Officers suggested that perhaps the committee could take a closer look into information sharing and digital technology and the issues associated with that, noting that the breadth of experience from Members may well help a review in this area.

The Director of Health, Housing and Adult Social Care offered to follow up on a question from the Chair regarding whether an option of a joint Chief Executive between the CCG and the Local Authority had been considered in York, as has been seen elsewhere in the Country.

This paper updates the Committee on the outcome of the Joint Health Scrutiny meeting between Health Scrutiny Members of North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC), Leeds City Council (LCC) and City of York Council (CYC) that took place on the 15 February 2019, in Harrogate.

A correction was made to the agenda, noting that it was Leeds ‘City’ Council and not Leeds County Council.

Members who attended the meeting informed the committee that they had had the opportunity to represent York’s Community and articulated the issues around the in-patient facilities at Harrogate.

The Committee put on record their concern that the decision not to build an in-patient facility in Harrogate might make sense to Tees, Esk and Wear Valley’s (TEWV) organisational boundaries, however there are still concerns on the potential effect this may have on York residents not being able to access in-patient facilities when needed.

One member made the point that the Chief Executive of TEWV had been confident at a previous meeting of the estimation of beds needed and that this should be recognised.

Members also made clear their disappointment at the decision by NHS Property Services to offer out Bootham Park Hospital to the highest bidder despite the hard work of many to try and retain the asset. The committee were keen to encourage the new committee to continue to work alongside NHS Property Services and the successful bidder to get the best for York residents. It was also noted by some Members that this was a direct consequence of the government’s decision on how NHS property services are to act in such circumstances and that it was a missed opportunity for the communities in York.