Agenda and minutes

At this point Members are asked to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they may have in the business on this agenda. A list of general personal interests previously declared are attached.

Members were invited to declare at this point in the meeting any personal or prejudicial interests they might have in the business on the agenda.

Councillor Wiseman referred to her standing declaration as a Governor of York Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and confirmed that she was no longer a member following a reduction in the number of Governors. She confirmed that she had now applied to join the Trust as a public member.

Councillor Simpson-Laing referred to her standing declaration as an employee of Relate but requested the removal of reference to working with residents of Askham Grange, which was not applicable.

To approve and sign the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee held on 14 December 2009.

Arising out of consideration of the Minutes, Cllr Fraser referred to the bullet pointed list of Members comments and questions in Minute 31 (Referral from the Executive regarding Overspends in Adult Social Services). He pointed out that he felt the following points had been omitted:

• “Queried what options the Executive Member had considered, accepted and rejected, to bring the budget back into balance. (The Executive Member refused to give this information).
• Queried the wisdom of the Council’s Executive accepting wholly uncosted amendments to their budget for 2009/10, proposed by a minor opposition party, which included notional, unspecified savings, which has no doubt exacerbated the departments budget position.
• Queried the potential impact of the ‘More for York’ programme on the future budgets in HASS, particularly for adult social care.

The Executive Member declined to comment on a number of these issues.”

Certain Members pointed out that the Executive Member had only been in attendance at the last meeting as an observer. They stated that he had been unable to report on budget information at that stage as the information was part of the budget process and they suggested amendments to Cllr Fraser’s suggested additions.

RESOLVED:             That the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 14 December 2009 be approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record subject to the addition of the following additional bullet points to the list of Members comments in Minute 31:

• “Queried what options the Executive Member had considered, accepted and rejected, to bring the budget back into balance. (The Executive Member did not give this information).
• Queried the wisdom of the Council’s Executive accepting wholly uncosted amendments to their budget for 2009/10, proposed by a minor opposition party, which included notional, unspecified savings.

The Executive Member declined to comment on a number of these issues.”

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 Tuesday 12 January 2010.

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

This report sets out the current financial pressures within Adult Social Services along with details of the mitigating actions being taken and likely future issues.

The Committee considered a report, which set out the current financial pressures within Adult Social Services together with details of the mitigating actions being taken and likely future issues.

Details of the main areas of overspend and the mitigating actions being undertaken were outlined in Annex One, with an analysis of spending in key areas over a three year period in Annex Two, to the report.

The Chair confirmed that this meeting had been arranged to consider details of the capital and revenue figures for Adult Social Services for the 2010/11 financial year. This information had been requested to enable the Committee to respond to the Executive’s request to review the reasons and possible options for offsetting the increase in demand for adult community care packages and care packages, which were having an impact on the Council’s budget.

Members expressed disappointment that the Executive Member had been unable to attend the meeting to answer questions in relation to this matter. They pointed out that under Part 4G of the Constitution – Scrutiny Review Procedure Rules scrutiny committees could require Executive Members to explain about matters within their remit.

Some Members suggested deferment of this item to allow the necessary information to be provided together with the attendance of the Executive Member, as they felt unable to provide a response to the Executive in relation of options without this input.

Other Members referred to the Executive’s request and pointed out that the information members were requesting would not be available, at this time, as it was part of the normal budget process.

Cllr Simpson-Laing then moved that further consideration of the report on current budget pressures be deferred pending receipt of the information requested at the Committee’s last meeting, namely the capital and revenue figures for Adult Social Services for the 2010/11 financial year. This was seconded by Cllr Fraser but on being put to the vote the motion was lost.

Officers then went through the report in more detail and some of the main points raised related to:

• Breakdown of the Residential and Nursing figures;
• Forecast of demand for services causing a similar overspend next year;
• Use of in house home care rather than private service providers following the 6 week assessment period;
• Paragraph 7 of the report to refer to ‘annual average cost of packages of care’ rather than ‘annual cost of average packages’;
• Questioned reference in paragraph 10 to ‘providers are now operating at the limit of their capacity’ and the future effect of this;
• Paragraph 13 reference to increased reliance on temporary staff as it was felt that maximum use should be being made of existing staff;
• Questioned Council’s operation of a Bank System for staffing;
• The young people with complex needs that would be coming into adult services how would this compare with previous years;
• Questioned ‘no HR implications’ of report as stated in paragraph 21;
• Difference between holding vacant posts and recruitment freeze of front line posts and the effect on service levels with cover  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37.

To consider the Committee’s Work Plan for 2009/10.

Consideration was given to the Committee’s Work Plan for 2009/10.

The Scrutiny Officer referred to the following additional items scheduled for the 3 March meeting:

• Interim Report regarding Childhood Obesity - progress and evidence gathered to date.
• Presentation on the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment

In view of the heavy agenda for the March meeting she suggested the deferral of some of the items to the 30 June meeting.

RESOLVED:             That the draft Work Plan be approved subject to its updating to reflect the above changes. ^1.

REASON:                  To update the Committee’s Work Plan.