Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Cllrs Rupinderjit Kaur and Elias Mattu.

No declarations of interests were made.

[To approve the minutes of the previous meeting as a correct record]

Resolved:

1.     That the resolution to Minute No. 5 (Update on the Dementia City) be corrected by the substitution of the word ‘advice’ for the word ‘advise’.

2.     That subject to 1 above, the minutes of the previous meeting held on 28 March 2017 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

With reference to the resolution to Minute No. 5 (Update on the Dementia City), Cllr Linda Leach (Chair) asked that the appropriate employees circulate the update information to members of the Panel via a briefing note.

[Paul Smith, Head of Commissioning, and Linda Sanders, Strategic Director People, to present report]

Cllr Sandra Samuels (Cabinet Member for Adults), David Watts, Service Director, Adults and Paul Smith, Head of Commissioning presented for review and comment the draft People Directorate Commissioning Strategy ‘Shaping Futures and Changing Lives’.

Members of the Panel made the following observations on the draft strategy:

·         It was an ambitious document and its broad thrust was welcomed as a good way forward.

·         Investment in good quality officers would be crucial to the successful implementation of the strategy. The increase in the numbers of quality assurance officers was therefore welcomed. Conversely the ambitiousness of the strategy could mean that it might be difficult to quality assure.

·         A forward be written into the document to include statements:

-        that all of the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 are to be fully consulted;

-        that organisations bidding for Council funding would need to respect the standards of the Equality Act and the Public Service Standards; and 

-        on the expectations from service commissioners to care providers.

(The Head of Commissioning agreed with the principle of this suggestion).

·         The strategy was unwieldy and difficult to navigate through to fully understand the picture of commissioning it was trying to portray.  It was missing information. Some of the terminology and jargon used was confusing and would possibly be meaningless to some i.e. the terms ‘stakeholder’, ‘market shaping activity’, ‘positive asset based approach’, ‘shaping futures’. It was also not clear to some of the Panel what was meant by ‘thematic approach to commissioning’ compared to the previous commissioning arrangements. These points should be addressed during the process of finalising the strategy.  A summary/easy read version of the strategy should also be produced to go out for the public consultation.

In response to questions, the Head of Commissioning and the Service Director, Adults reported that:

·         The risk to the delivery of the Strategy would be that it misses its target audience and as a result the wrong services are delivered. In order to mitigate that risk the correct consultation exercise would have to be delivered in order to find out stakeholders views.

One aim of the People Directorate’s draft Commissioning Strategy was to try and minimise some of the risks that may exist with having separate commissioning strategies in the thematic areas across the directorate.

·         The officer resource was in place to deliver the strategy.  The Council had invested £1.8 million of resources into commissioning in the directorate and it was expected that £90 to £100 million would be invested by third sector organisations.  The Council’s investment was incredible compared to its peer Authorities across the Black Country s and it was felt that the resources were appropriate. The number of Quality Assurance officers had increased.  A report had also been presented to Cabinet in March 2017 who approved investment of £1.1 million in additional fees into the city for all active domiciliary care providers and residential and nursery care in order to accommodate the needs of the National Living Wage.  The City Council therefore paid  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.