Issue - meetings

To receive a report from the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health and the Corporate Director of Social Care, Health and Wellbeing and endorse or make recommendations to the Cabinet Member on the proposed decision to enter into a Section 75 agreement.

Ms J Frazer, Programme Manager, Health and Social Care Integration, and Ms M Reynolds, Senior Associate, Kent and Medway Commissioning Service, were in attendance for this item.

1.            Ms Frazer and Ms Reynolds introduced the report and explained the workings of a Section 75 agreement.  They responded to comments and questions from Members, as follows:-

a)    service users currently affected by the new arrangement would be only those in receipt of a Direct Payment who had taken part in a pilot   scheme, so numbers were currently small, and it was not yet clear to what extent the numbers would grow in the future.  Projections made for the scope of the new arrangements were based on a broader range of service users with long-term conditions;

b)    in response to a question about the likely increase in annual cost as the client base grew, Ms Reynolds and Mr Ireland explained that the Section 75 agreement gave the County Council a mechanism for claiming from CCGs sufficient funds to meet demand and had been established with the expectation that funds would increase. Ms Frazer undertook to circulate to the committee an example case study which was listed as a background document to the report; and

c)    one additional member of staff would be employed to manage the administrative required to operate the Section 75 agreement.

2.            RESOLVED that:-

a)    the decision proposed to be taken by the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, to enter into a Section 75 agreement with the Kent clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to allow the CCGs to utilise the County Council’s financial systems to make personal health budget direct payments, be endorsed; and

b)    authority be delegated to the Corporate Director of Social Care, Health and Wellbeing, or other suitable officer, to arrange the sealing of the Section 75 agreement.