Agenda, decisions and draft minutes

At this point Members are asked to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they may have in the business on this agenda.

The Executive Member was invited to declare at this point in the meeting any personal or prejudicial interests they might have in the business on the agenda. He declared he had none.

Councillor Fraser, who was in attendance at the meeting, declared a personal non prejudicial interest in agenda item 4 (2011-12 Health and Adult Social Services Budget Proposals) on which he had registered to speak, as he is a member of the retired section of Unison and a member of the retired section of the Acts Section of the T&GWU Section of Unite and also as the Council’s appointed governor for the York Hospital Foundation Trust.

Councillor T Simpson-Laing, who was also in attendance at the meeting, declared a personal non prejudicial interest in agenda item 4 (2011-12 Health and Adult Social Services Budget Proposals) on which she had registered to speak, as she is a member of Unison.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday 21 December 2010.

RESOLVED:             That the minutes of the last Decision Session of the Executive Member for Heath and Adult Social Services, held on 21 December 2010, be approved as a correct record.

It was reported that there had been six representations to speak under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme in relation to item 4  (2011-12 Health and Adult Social Services Budget Proposals).

A member of the public spoke out against the proposed cuts to mental health services contained within the budget proposals. She explained that a friend of hers had received support through council funded services for which she was grateful and had been doing well as a result, but that as a result of receiving a reduced level of care due to NHS cuts her friend had had to spend more time in hospital which she pointed out leads to problems of transition back into the community. She stressed that cuts were not cost effective to the Council and asked the Executive Member not to reduce services to disabled people nor remove ring fencing.

A representative of the Salvation Army spoke against the proposed cuts to prevention services. She provided examples of where York Salvation Army projects save money stating that their projects were high quality, inexpensive and in some instances subsidised by themselves. She stressed that prevention was cost effective  and critical to future years where ongoing savings would need to be made. She pointed out that cutting prevention work would increase costs in many other areas of the Council’s budgets and other statutory areas. She advised that the speed of changes to those delivering front line services needed to be carefully managed and new partnerships, including developing relationships, policies, protocols etc, needed time to work and that if providers were not given time to make these changes, services would fail.  

The Co-Chair of the Valuing People Partnership Board spoke in relation to savings proposal ref ACE 115 (Learning Disability Development Fund). He stated that the money had previously been ring-fenced for this fund but would now fall within the base budget and be subject to a reduction. He explained that the schemes paid for through this fund were small and with a good return on investment. He asked the Executive Member to protect the remaining services and allow as much flexibility as possible in the future.

A Unison representative spoke against the proposed cuts to some services. She advised that outsourcing services was not a robust principal and left the services too far removed from accountability and would make them difficult to monitor. They raised concerns that there had been no discussion with Unison prior to market testing services but stated that she understood that they would now  be consulted. She asked that more effort be put into looking at in-house options as an alternative to outsourcing. She also raised concerns about the proposed removal of one AMPH post from the Mental Health team, the effects this would have and that no consultation had taken place with the team in question. She asked the Executive Member to consider the implication of any cuts to services and urged great caution in recommending them.

Councillor S Fraser raised concerns about various  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

RESOLVED:            

(i)         That agreement be given by the Executive Member that the budget proposals are in line with the Council’s priorities.

(ii)        That comments made by the Executive Member on the budget proposals contained in the report and annexes be submitted to the Budget Executive on 15 February 2011.

(iii)       That officers be thanked for their hard work in preparing the budget proposals.

Reason:

As part of the consultation on the Adult Social Services budget for 2010/11.

The Executive Member received a report which presented the 2011-12 budget proposals for Adult Social Services in order that he could consider and provide comments on the budget proposals within the report, in advance of the proposals being considered by the Executive at its meeting on 15 February 2011. The budget proposals included:

• the national context regarding local government funding and the implications for City of York Council.
• the approach that had been adopted to develop budget proposals; the outcomes of the customer budget consultation.
• the revenue budget for 2010-11 to show existing budgets; the budget adjusted and rolled forward from 2010-11 into 2011-12.
• the cost of pay and price increases and increments for the portfolio.
• the proposals for budget service pressure costs and savings options for the portfolio area and fees and charges proposals.

The Director of Adults, Children and Education explained that the large reduction in funding to local authorities meant that the pure efficiency work of past years was not enough and advised that the report brought forward options for Members to consider and take forward. He emphasised that the budget papers contained a lot of positive news and stressed the Council’s continued commitment to adult social care in general and in particular to prevention and working with partners and the voluntary sector. He asked the Executive Member to note the proposed expansion of the Reablement Service and the significant investments in supporting the voluntary services which underpin statutory services. He explained that the Council faced a challenge in determining who was best placed to be the best provider of care, whether that be the Council or external providers.

The Director of Adults, Children and Education, the Assistant Director (Adult Assessment and Safeguarding), the Assistant Director (Adult Provision and Transformation) and the Corporate Strategy Manager (Integrated Commissioning) responded to specific questions and issues which had been raised by speakers under agenda item 16 (Public Participation).

The Executive Member responded further to issues raised and credited officers on putting together a set of proposals which looked beyond the immediate financial crisis to what adult social services (with joined up health provision) need to look like in five years. He acknowledged that a growing proportion of older people in our population translated into an even greater than expected demand for services and welcomed the proposals to double the number of hours available through the Reablement Service. He explained that the development of personal budgets would give control to individuals to spend the money allocated to them for care services. He stated that by already commissioning over three-quarters of homecare through independent providers, the Council had created a strong market and a field of quality providers, which in-house analysis and national research had shown to provide high quality care,  and that if the Council chose not to commission these providers to provide these services then customers were likely to, leaving any in-house services to become increasingly uncompetitive. He thanked officers for their hard work in preparing the budget proposals in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.