Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED: that the minutes of the meeting held on 8 December 2010 are correctly recorded and that they be signed by the Chairman.

(1) Mrs Dean updated Members on the situation regarding gulley-emptying

schedules, including the fact that Mr Burr had provided information on the all the gulleys in each Member’s division. The Committee would receive a further report in the Autumn after Mr Burr had explored how the emptying schedules would be tackled with the new tenderers for the work.

(2) Mrs Law commented that Mr Burr had undertaken at the previous meeting to provide information on utility companies’ use of some of the gulleys in her division, but she had not yet received this information. The Chairman explained that the gulley-emptying schedules item would remain in the recommendations until the further report had been received from Mr Burr.

(3) On the Kent Design Guide, the Chairman explained that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced that the maximum number of parking spaces in any new development would be abolished. Approximately half of Kent’s District Councils had signed up to Guide, and Mr Burr would be reassessing whether it should be adopted on a countywide basis.

(4) Regarding the Review of SEN Units, the Chairman explained that the letter to the Secretary of State was distributed on 6 January 2011. She informed Members that Mr Feltham had asked her to endorse the letter, to which she had agreed. The Chairman stated that she would like to draw the delay in discharging the recommendations to the Group Managing Director’s attention.

(5) The Chairman informed Members that the paper related to Safeguarding would be considered at the end of the meeting, because it would have to be debated in closed session. Post meeting note: Due to the length of the debate, it was resolved that this would be considered at the next substantive meeting of the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee.

(6) On Inspection of Safeguarding and Looked After Children Services, the Chairman informed Members that the development of the improvement plan had not been concluded, therefore this item would not be pursued at this meeting.

(7) On Bold Steps for Kent – The Medium Term Plan to 2014, there were two

outstanding recommendations:

1. Ask the Leader that any data on the increase in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) accessing contracts be made available (The Chairman explained that the aim was to know if staff working on regeneration were effective in helping small business.)
2. Ask the Leader that ways of engaging members of the public in the Big Society who are not members of Local Strategic Partnerships or other similar bodies be addressed in the Medium Term Plan. (The Chairman explained that she expected a report on this work to be provided to Members)

RESOLVED: that the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee note the follow-up items report and responses to previous recommendations.

RESOLVED: that the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee approve the notes of the Informal Member Group on Budgetary Issues held on 6 January 2011.

This item will be considered in two parts:

1. An over-arching discussion relating to the Older Person’s modernisation programme and elements relating to consultations, the movement away from direct provision of services, comparative costs of public and private sector service provision and any other issues.
2. Discussions relating to the individual decisions about each site.

Mr G Gibbens, Cabinet Member, Adult Social Services, Mr O Mills, Managing Director, Kent Adult Social Services, Ms M Howard, Director of Operations and Mr D Weiss, Head of Public Private Partnerships and Property Team have been invited to attend the meeting between 10.15am and 12.15pm to answer Members’ questions on this item.

Currently the following external witnesses have been invited to answer Members’ questions: Karen Baldwin (The Limes), John Porter (Bowles Lodge), Brian Hague (Ladesfield) and Councillor Ron Weeden (Tunbridge Wells Borough Council).

Please note: If Members of the Committee wish to invite external witnesses to speak in relation to any of the specific decisions, please could they contact Adam Webb or Peter Sass, who will liaise with the Chairman and Spokesmen accordingly.

The individual Records of Decision for each of the 11 decisions will be circulated to the Committee as soon as they are made available (it is anticipated that this will be on 13 January 2011).

Mr G Gibbens, Cabinet Member, Adult Social Services, Mr O Mills, Managing Director, Kent Adult Social Services, Ms M Howard, Director of Operations, Mr D Weiss, Head of Public Private Partnerships and Property Team, Ms K Baldwin, The Limes Focus Group, John Porter, Bowles Lodge Stays, Brian Hague, Mr R Perry, Friends of Wayfarers, Mr D Lloyd, UNISON and Ms J Tuck, UNISON were present for this item.

(1) The Chairman explained that the running order of the debate would be as follows:

• Consultation
• The movement away from direct provision of services
• Comparative costs of private and public sector provision
• Discussions about individual decisions

(2) She explained that the Committee did not have the power to make decisions, but could ask others to review the decisions they had taken.

(3) Mr Gibbens introduced the item, stating that:

• The process over the previous 6-8 months had been to look at how the Council was providing care currently, while looking ahead to the demographic changes of the next 20-30 years.
• He fully understood that it was a stressful process and appreciated people’s concerns.
• Changes would be undertaken carefully and sensitively, working with the individuals, their families and friends.
• It had been interesting to speak to service users and the people of Kent about how the Council would meet the challenges of the future demographic changes.

(4) Mrs Howard gave a presentation about the Older Person’s Modernisation programme, which covered:

• Reasons for change
• Proposals for services in each of the sites affected
• The consultation, including a breakdown of the responses and common themes
• Numbers of users at each site
• Recommendations for each site
• The next steps in the process

(5) The external witnesses were then invited to give their statements:

David Lloyd, UNISON (speaking on the programme as a whole)

(6) Mr Lloyd explained that UNISON had been involved in a long campaign against the modernisation programme in conjunction with the people of Kent. Its principal concern was with the consultation process. Many people had expressed misgivings, via the media or by letter, but UNISON did not feel that these had been taken into account, and responses to a questionnaire had shown three-quarters of people wanted to services to remain in-house. UNISON doubted the private sector could run its services cheaper than KCC, and some private sector units provided more than 50 beds, whereas research had shown people preferred smaller units. People also thought that the standard of service provided by the Council was very high, and there were concerns about possible Adult Protection issues with private sector provision.

Richard Perry, Friends of Wayfarers

(7) Mr Perry felt that KCC should continue as a provider of residential accommodation due to the increasing number of older people needing residential care. He thought that KCC ran excellent homes, and in doing so set the standard for services and that external regulation could not fulfil this role. He was concerned that the money to be saved by placing residents within the independent sector would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 92.

This item is provisional depending on a draft improvement plan being made available

Mrs S Hohler, Cabinet Member, Children, Families and Education, and Mr M Newsam, Interim Director of Children’s Services, have been invited toattend the meeting between 12.15pm and 12.45pm to answer Members' questions on this item.

(1) This item was provisional on an improvement plan being made available. Since the improvement plan was still being developed at the time of the meeting, this item was not considered.

This item is provisional depending on the outcome of the Member Budget Briefing on 17 January.

Mr P Carter, Leader of the Council, Mr J Simmonds, Cabinet Member, Finance, and Mr A Wood, Acting Director of Finance, have been invited to attend the meeting between 12.45pm and 1.15pm to answer Member's questions on this item.

For the report please see Section 2 of the Draft Budget Book published on 6 January 2011.

(1) Due to magnitude of the debate on the Older Person’s Modernisation item, the Chairman asked that this be considered at the meeting of the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee on 24 January 2011, as part of the wider discussion on the Budget.