Agenda item

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 on the Local Account, and agree that a cross-party group of committee Members be convened to review and finalise the local account document and recommend its publication by the Cabinet Member.

Ms S Smith, Head of Performance and Information Management, was in attendance for this item.

1.            Ms Smith introduced the report and explained that the intention was that a cross-party group of Members meet in October to consider a final draft of the Local Account document before the Cabinet Member signed off the final version for publication during November.

2.            The Chairman said that he was disappointed by the suggestion that the document would be signed off and published without having been considered at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee.  He said he did not support decisions being taken outside the Cabinet Committee process where this could be avoided, and did not want to encourage the establishment of Sub-Committees. The Committee then discussed the possible options for considering the Local Account document. Mr Lobban pointed out that, due to the need to publish the finished document by the end of the year, the Cabinet Committee would have limited time to discuss it. Mr Ireland added that the cross-party Member group model had worked well in the past.

a)    speakers supported the Chairman’s view but sympathised with the aims of the officers in proposing that course of action;

b)    the possibility of using social media to publicise and consult on the document was raised. It was important that the document reached the people who were most concerned with its content;

c)    having a retrospective report on the document in December would not be much help to the committee; it needed to see the draft before it was signed off, so all Members could have input into it;

d)    the possibility and usefulness of the committee having an additional special meeting in October was then discussed, with the 3 December meeting then receiving the final document in December; and

e)    publishing in January would simply be too late and would look bad, so the Committee was limited to accepting the offer of a cross-party sub-group this year and improving the process and timing in time for next year.   

3.            The Cabinet Member agreed that, ideally, the whole Cabinet Committee should have the opportunity to consider the document, but December would be very late for the document to be published.  He explained that he had supported the planned cross-party meeting in October and undertook that he and Ms Smith would provide feedback on that meeting to any Member who was unable to attend. He emphasised the importance of the document as an annual record of the County Council’s work in adult social care and stated his commitment that next year’s document would be prepared early enough to be considered at a meeting of the whole Cabinet Committee before being signed off and published.

4.            The Chairman supported this and asked Members if they were happy to proceed on the basis of what the Cabinet Member had suggested; a cross-party Member group meeting in October to consider the final draft, the Cabinet Member signing off the decision in November and the sign-off being reported to the Cabinet Committee in December.

5.            RESOLVED that a cross-party group of Cabinet Committee Members meet during October to review a final draft version of the Local Account document, which could lead to a recommendation to the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health to publish the Local Account.