Agenda item

(1)       The Leader updated the Council on events since the previous meeting.

(2)       Mr Carter thanked Andy Wood for the enormous contribution that he had made to Kent County Council.  He also sent the good wishes of all Members to Mr Simmonds for a speedy recovery. 

(3)       Mr Carter referred to health and social care integration through the Sustainable Transformation Programme (STP) which was starting to show good progress.  The Leader had been invited to chair the Local Care Implementation Board across the health economy of Kent and Medway.  Three productive meetings had been held and it was now important to put GPs at the heart of local care and empower GPs through the coming together of multi-disciplinary teams serving a population of 35-50,000 patients. 

(4)       Mr Carter was hopeful that additional money could be found from the £2.4billion health economy in Kent which could be put into front line services allowing for an expanded workforce.  A training programme was in place but in the short term it was going to be necessary to find, from around the world, well qualified people to come and live and work in Kent to support our health economy.  To enable this it was important to have the right number of good quality key worker houses for these people to have priority access to. 

(5)       Mr Carter told Members of his recent visit to Farrow Court in Ashford which was a former residential care home run and owned by KCC who joined forces with Ashford Borough Council and have developed a campus of sheltered housing including enablement beds and units for adults with learning disabilities.  Mr Carter considered that this was built to a stunning standard and recommended that Members visit the site and that the model was replicated across Kent.  He considered that the same theory applied to the physical facilities that GPs worked out of, these needed to be state of the art and located strategically across Kent. 

(6)       Mr Carter then referred to education and the work in Kent on the provision of sufficient places and the basic need allocation.  The Society of County Treasurers had suggested that there was around a £1billion shortfall in funding over the next five years for a sufficiency of places and it was going to be essential to input into the spending review next spring to make sure there was adequate resource to deliver the expansions in Kent. 

(7)       Mr Bird, the Leader of the Opposition, started by referring members to the William Beveridge report which stated that a revolution was needed, not patching.  Mr Bird considered that the problem with health and social care was that it was a patchwork and he agreed with Mr Carter that what was needed was a cohesive structure which pulled all the strands together.  Mr Bird agreed that resources for primary care were critical with a chronic shortage of GPs, the new training facilities were welcomed and housing was part of the process to attract good quality workers into Kent.  Mr Bird stated that there were two strands of training programmes for nurses in Kent; the graduate programme and the nursing association programme and they did not interlock at all; in addition there were six nursing apprenticeships in Kent. 

(8)       Referring to social care Mr Bird explained that social workers got minimal initial training and no professional development opportunities.  To make community care work it was necessary to have highly qualified social care workers. 

(9)       Referring to sheltered care housing Mr Bird reminded Members that Mrs Dean had previously proposed a Select Committee on housing, it was considered that there was a desperate need to address the housing needs for people the need supported or extra care housing. 

(10)     On basic needs funding and school provision generally, Mr Bird referred to the revised National Planning Policy Framework which was considered to be a frustration for residents and planners, the green paper had targets for new housing but none of the provision which was desperately needed for funding vital infrastructure.   

(11)     Mr Farrell, Leader of the Labour Group, welcomed the new Chairman and Vice Chairman and wished them a successful year and paid tribute to Mr Brazier. 

(12)     Mr Farrell referred to the STP and how he had previously warned that a lack of funding for transformation would stifle creative solutions, inhibit successful integration and prevent the key objective of improving health care.  He raised concerns about a lack of progress, but he welcomed the Leader’s comments about the STP.  Mr Farrell raised a question about how integration would bring about billions of pounds of savings in a service which already saw nearly £800million in foundation trust deficits. 

(13)     Mr Farrell welcomed the comments of the Leader relating to welcoming staff from all across the world to support the health service, he was also pleased about the bid from the University of Kent and Christchurch to form a medical school and he looked forward to hearing how it would engage with the STP.  Mr Farrell raised concerns about funding available for long term transformation which was essential to meet demands, drive efficiencies and improve the service. 

(14)     Mr Farrell commented that a lack of funding was not only a problem for the NHS but also for the provision of education.  There was a shortfall in funding for school places in Kent of around £149 million and in addition schools were having their budgets cut.  Mr Farrell stated that the LGA welcomed the Government’s decision to work with local councils to open new schools, particularly in Kent.  Mr Farrell considered that extending grammar schools or increasing the number of religious schools did little to help the lack of higher needs funding seen across the county and the financial position of KCC. 

(15)     Mr Farrell joined the Leader in recognising the positive benefit Farrow Court had brought to South Ashford. The development also highlighted the way in which Councils could intervene positively in a damaged market while borrowing money to support development. 

(16)     Mr Whybrow, Leader of the Independents Group, welcomed the Chairman and thanked Mr Brazier for his fair efficient chairing of Council meetings. 

(17)     Mr Whybrow was pleased to see the Leader and the County Council Network leading the call for better funding for education, particularly for high needs.  He highlighted the £75.5million overspend in SEN just in the South East, he suggested that the Government could reallocate the £50million set aside for grammar school expansion.  Mr Whybrow considered that funding was not keeping up with the negative effect that it was having on people’s lives and he raised the NSPCC report on referrals for pupils for mental health treatment with over half being from primary schools.  He praised the contribution that Tessa Jowell made to this area, particularly in the establishment of the Sure Start Centres from which Kent and so much of the country had benefited.  Mr Whybrow hoped the Centres continued to thrive despite the cuts.

(18)     Referring to social care Mr Whybrow agreed that Farrow Court was a flagship development and the challenge now was how this was scaled up as quickly as possible, social care needed a major transformation. 

(19)     Mr Whybrow explained to Members the Shared Lives model which was where families hosted adults who needed support.  Mr Whybrow recently attended an event in London hosted by Nesta and then returned to KCC to see what progress had been made regarding Shared Lives. He was pleased to find an excellent team with 185 host families and he found some inspiring stories about what the shared life model could achieve. 

(20)     In replying to the other Leaders’ comments, Mr Carter considered that the group leaders were fairly aligned.  He shared the concerns of Mr Farrell about the time spent discussing the STP and it was now time to deliver but funding was needed. The Leader was doing everything possible to ensure that there was funding into primary and community care to deliver to the ambition that had been signed up to.  The Leader agreed with Mr Whybrow that progress needed to be accelerated in delivering the new model of extra care based on the quality and standards that had been delivered at Farrow Court. 

(21)     Referring to education the Leader reminded Members that on the expansion and provision of school modernisation Kent had a very good and proud track record of delivering new schools, expansions to existing schools and most importantly giving parents greater choice.  However unless additional resource was received this would not continue and the Leader referred to an article and interview he had done in The Independent about the national problem on high needs funding and mainstream education having money taken away from it to fill the funding gap in the provision of high needs funding.  Some of this was because of the legislation changing; raising the statutory responsibility to educate all young people irrespective of their disability up to the age of 25 from 19 with no additional money.  Mr Carter also stated that there were some perverse incentives in getting Education Health and Care plans agreed and that the system was not good.

(22)     The Leader concluded by stating that he was cautiously optimistic that provided the funding was available there were some exciting plans ahead to deliver the local care model in bringing health and social together to give better health outcomes to all residents and patients in Kent.  On education he would continue to lobby on the Treasury to free up more money for school expansion programmes against rising populations.