Agenda item

(Ms M Howard, Director of Commissioning and Provision, West Kent, and Mrs C Holden, Project Manager, were in attendance for this item)

1)         Ms Howard introduced the report and explained that interim services which had been put in place for the former users of the Queen Elizabeth Resource Centre were those which users had requested in the consultation process around the closure of the Centre.  The number of days’ service provided had been matched to the number of days’ service previously provided at the Centre.  The new service provision had received good comments from users.

2)         Members welcomed the good news story as a happy outcome to a problem which had been very difficult to address, and they congratulated the officer team on all the work they had put into handling the changeover and establishing the new service provision.  Ms Howard thanked Members for their compliments and comments.

3)         In discussion, and in response to questions raised by Members, the following points were highlighted:-

(a)   There had been no break in service between the old Centre closing and new services starting, and no users of the former Centre who had wanted an alternative had been left without service provision;

(b)    In response to a question about what lessons might be learnt from the consultation process, and what might be done differently next time, Ms Howard said that, if the exercise were to be repeated, the officer team would follow the same consultation process in the same way but would aim to start earlier and conclude sooner so the period of uncertainty and potential anxiety for users would be kept to a minimum;

(c)   Although one of the new services had run in parallel with QEF it had proved difficult for service users to embrace the idea of new services until they had accepted and believed that the previous service would really come to an end;

(d)   The Vice-Chairman suggested that lessons learnt from the consultation process around the transfer of services in Dartford could be used as a case study to help plan any future change to similar services in other areas;

(e)   He also suggested that service users could hold an event in October 2009 to mark the first year of the new service provision, to celebrate the success of the change and what had been achieved;

(f)     The report explained that the management of the current service was an interim arrangement, and the intention was to tender for an external organisation to run the service from the autumn of 2009. The Vice-Chairman expressed disappointment that another in-house service was being contracted out, and expressed the concern that this might lead to the KCC becoming an enabler rather than a provider, losing its expertise at providing services directly. Ms Howard pointed out that the current arrangement was only ever intended to be temporary; and

(g)   Services put in place under the new arrangement were largely for existing users of the former Queen Elizabeth Resource Centre, and new users were not expected to join them unless it was for specific and time limited reasons as new clients would access different services via different routes.

4)         RESOLVED that the information in the report and in response to questions from Members be noted, and Members’ thanks and congratulations be passed to the Officer team.