Agenda item

(1)       Mark Lobban (Director of Strategic Commissioning) introduced the paper which set out information about the recent review of housing related support and proposals about the integration of services into a wider social care context.  He reminded the Commissioning Body of the main points of the presentation he had given at the meeting on 22 July 2014.  He also said that the KDAAT had transferred to Public Health with effect from 1 October leaving a team of six in the Supporting People team managed by M Anthony.  He thanked Di Wright (Head of Commissioned Services), who was leaving KCC, for her contribution.

(2)       Mr Lobban said that decisions relating to some client groups within the Supporting People would be taken by the Cabinet Members with responsibility for Adult Social Care and Public Health and Specialist Children’s Services but the governance arrangements for socially excluded groups such as homeless people or those experiencing domestic violence was less clear.  He said he wanted to ensure that KCC Members understood the services that were being provided to these groups and the impact on statutory functions of any decision not to fund these services in future.  He said he proposed to begin that conversation with a paper to the next meeting of the Adult Social Care and Public Health Cabinet Committee on 4 December 2014 and bring a further paper to the next meeting of the Commissioning Body on 27 January 2015.

(3)       During the discussion the following points were made:

(i)         District and borough councillors need to know how the revised arrangements would impact on their ability to help residents who contacted them to resolve their problems and concerns;

(ii)        ACC Rob Price, who chairs the Reducing Re-offending Board, should be involved in any conversation about preventative services at the earliest opportunity;

(iii)       District and boroughs understood budget pressures, the need to avoid duplication of services and wanted to ensure that funding for preventative services was retained;

(iv)       Homelessness and rough sleeper services were not statutory services for KCC and districts were already funding more Domestic Violence services;

(v)        The report to the Adults Social Care and Public Health Cabinet Committee should include of a position statement, a paragraph outlining the outcomes of preventative work, the history of the supporting people budget which had been subsumed into KCC’s budget, the work done over previous years and how preventative services operated at the local level;

(vi)       Districts needed assurance that preventative services had been given proper consideration as part of KCC’s transformation programme;

(vii)      It would be unhelpful to lose the partnership approach to delivering housing related services;

(viii)     Local health and wellbeing boards may not always be the best place to discuss some of the issues related to socially excluded groups.

(4)       Cllr Mrs Anderson read an email from Cllr Mrs Chandler setting out her concerns that the proposed changes gave little opportunity for district council members to have any input in the future, the delivery timescales set out in paragraph 5 of the report did not appear to included consultation with district councils and that it might not be appropriate to include all local health and wellbeing boards in future governance arrangements.

(5)       Melanie Anthony said she would circulate the draft report to the Adult Social Care and Public Health Cabinet Committee to members of the Commissioning Body by 24 October 2014 and would need to receive any comments by Friday 14 November 2014.

(6)       Mr Lobban said: it was important to ensure the right people were involved in early discussions; KCC members had an informed discussion about funding at the Adults Social Care and Public Health Cabinet Committee on 4 December which would feed into KCC’s budget for 2015/16; and that this should be followed by consideration of governance arrangements at the next meeting of the SPCB on 27 January 2015.

(7)       Resolved that:

(a)       The report be noted

(b)       The proposals set out in paragraph 5(1) - 5(4) and the timescales set out in paragraph 6(1) - 6(3) be agreed.