Wrthi'n llwytho
Yn ei gyfarfod ar 13 Hydref 2025, bu Pwyllgor Craffu Gwasanaethau Cymunedol ac Oedolion yn ystyried tri adroddiad cyn iddynt fynd gerbron y Cabinet: Adroddiad Blynyddol Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol Awdurdod Lleol 2024/25, Cynllun Comisiynu Rhaglen Cymorth Tai, ac atgyweirio tai cyngor. Ar bob eitem, gofynnodd yr aelodau gwestiynau, a chytunodd y Cadeirydd ysgrifennu at yr Aelod Cabinet perthnasol gyda sylwadau'r Pwyllgor. Nid yw'r cofnodion yn cofnodi unrhyw benderfyniadau gan y Cabinet.
Apologies were received from Cllr Lent.
Cllr Littlechild declared a personal interest due to his involvement in outreach work in Roath, which was relevant to all the main agenda items.
The minutes of the 15th September meeting were approved and signed as a correct record.
Y penderfyniad fel y'i cofnodwyd
AGREED: that the Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, writes to the Cabinet Member conveying the observations of the Committee when discussing the way forward.
Members were provided with an opportunity to consider the report to Cabinet titled ‘Local Authority Social Services Annual Report 2024/25’, prior to its consideration by Cabinet on 17th October. For this item, the Chair welcomed: Cllr Leonora Thomson Cabinet Member for Adult Services and Public Health & Equality Sarah McGill Corporate Director, People & Communities Jane Thomas Director of Adults, Housing & Communities Louise Bassett Assistant Director, Adult Services The Cabinet Member was invited to make an opening statement, in which she noted that the annual report had a new template this year, setting out eight high level quality standards under four headings: people, prevention, partnership and integration & wellbeing, and with an emphasis on self-assessment. It mixed children’s and adult services throughout, and Cllr Lister had already taken his sections of the report to the Children & Young People Scrutiny Committee. She added that there had been more than 2,500 new wellbeing assessments in 2024/25, an 18% increase on the previous year. The number of adults whose needs could only be met through a care and support plan had increased by 25%, demonstrating the complexity of cases coming in. 94% of unpaid carers had been offered an assessment of their support needs across the year, and 98% of enquiries were completed within seven days despite an increase in cases. She cited the reduction in the number of vacant social worker posts from 17% to 12% across the year as a significant achievement given the issues in the sector. 96% of clients felt able to live independently in their own homes following support from the Independent Living Service, and 95% were happy with the officer support they received. Cardiff also remained one of the best-performing local authorities in Wales for hospital discharge. In terms of challenges, she noted that while the supply of care was generally good, there were ongoing risks to the stability of the domiciliary care market with which the Committee was familiar. The report set out the strategic direction of their five-year plan to deliver sustainable services, in particular based on prevention and right-sizing. She thanked staff in adult services for their work throughout the year. Members were invited to ask questions and make comments; the discussion is summarised below. Members welcomed the achievements in the service and thanked staff for their work, in particular citing improvements in recent years and care packages provided to those leaving hospital. They noted the increased 70% satisfaction rate among residents in receipt of adult social care and enquired about the key trends of the responses from the other 30%. Officers explained that expectations were sometimes higher than they were able to meet, and they couldn’t always give people everything they wanted, but they looked closely at individual responses and had a formal complaints process if necessary. Members noted that 92% of older people felt more connected with their communities after being supported by the service, and asked why the other 8% might not have done. Officers noted that this related to the day opportunities team, which encouraged people to go out independently into the community, for example after a bereavement. Some people were not able to do that, and the service was still a major success even if it didn’t work for everyone. Members explored the day services for complex learning disabilities and in particular the size of the waiting list, which officers explained was relatively small as it catered to a specific group. They were seeking to expand the day service’s capacity by ‘stepping down’ some cases and finding community- and outreach-based alternatives. Members asked how young people coming from school into the service were looked after, and heard that there was a dedicated transition team which worked directly with schools to identify who might need to be supported. Members highlighted the £2.8m overspend in commissioned care which was offset by an underspend on internal services due to vacant posts, and asked whether this would lead to an overspend now that these posts had been filled. Officers clarified that although they were recruiting and getting people in, standard notice periods applied and they were not yet seeing a significant overspend overall. Members noted the new template of the report, which they felt was more accessible and readable than previous editions. Officers explained that the change followed a working group to which the council had contributed. While not everything they suggested had been implemented (for instance separating adults and children’s services), it linked well to other strategies and documents. The Committee explored the service’s capacity to provide support in the Welsh language, and heard that it met its needs in that regard. They had social workers who could engage with and provide care for individuals who had Welsh as a first language, and it was the same in other parts of the service such as taking payments. Members asked whether the ethnic background of those applying was recorded, and heard that a breakdown of this had been provided to the CASSC task and finish group, the final report of which was expected soon. Members asked how risks to the supply of domiciliary care going forward were being mitigated. Officers explained that at present there was an oversupply of this kind of care, but this was heavily reliant on the migrant workforce, which was not sustainable in the long term due to Home Office rules changing and an overheated market. They were considering a range of options to remedy the issue, but struggled to recruit from the local workforce. Members asked about the social care workforce and heard that out of 150 or so social workers, only a few of them were migrant workers as it was easier to recruit UK nationals to those roles. It was the network of commissioned providers, particularly for domiciliary care and care home workers, that was most reliant on the migrant workforce. Members queried the mix of frontline and back office amongst the 750 staff employed in Adult Services and heard that it was a complex picture due to the variety of different teams, which ranged from first point of contact and wellbeing officers to those involved in commissioning, contract management and general administration. Officers agreed to provide a more specific breakdown of roles within the service after the meeting. The Committee explored the role of trusted assessors and heard that these were qualified staff, often occupational therapists or wellbeing visitors, who could assess care needs as well as for equipment and adaptations, for example how well someone could get around their home or wash themselves. The service sought to use the officers and skills they had and empower them to do a comprehensive job. In the past, this assessment would have had to go from the occupational therapist to a social worker, who didn’t necessarily know any more about what the person needed, so it reduced referrals back and forth between different staff. Rather than diluting what social workers did, it freed them up to concentrate on more complex cases, and the trusted assessor model was seen by the Welsh government as best practice. Members asked for further information about how someone qualified as a trusted assessor and how their work was monitored. Members discussed carer’s assessments, noting that 94% of eligible carers had been offered one and around 500 had been carried out in total. Members asked how many unrecognised carers there were in Cardiff, and heard that it was likely to be a high number. They sought to promote carer’s assessments across the city, in particular by training staff in Hubs to recognise when someone was providing care, as well as through the CareDiff newsletter. Members expressed surprise that a larger proportion of complaints were categorised as being due to the service received rather than because of delays or communication, and asked how these were responded to. Officers suggested that complaints could be due to the level of service provided not being what someone expected, or the officer they received it from, or could be financial. The service looked closely at trends in complaints, with managers attending senior management team meetings to discuss them. Officers suggested that it was better for people to be able to make a complaint in an accessible and effective way that the service could learn from rather than suffering in silence. Members requested more information about the complaints service, with officers also suggesting that it could be helpful for the service to come to a future meeting for a specific item. Members asked about methods of referral, noting that calls received had only increased by 1.67% despite the significantly growing demand. Officers explained that these could come through the Independent Living Service, from hospitals, from councillor referrals and more. The total number of calls hadn’t gone up by much, but nearly two-thirds of them were resolved through information and advice and didn’t make it all the way to the main service. Cases were growing in complexity and there were more higher needs cases than before, so they were promoting support as widely as possible. AGREED: that the Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, writes to the Cabinet Member conveying the observations of the Committee when discussing the way forward.
Y penderfyniad fel y'i cofnodwyd
AGREED: that the Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, writes to the Cabinet Member conveying the observations of the Committee when discussing the way forward.
Members were provided with background information and an overview of the structure of the report to Cabinet titled ‘Housing Support Programme Commissioning Plan’, prior to its consideration by Cabinet on 16th October. The Chair reminded Members that Appendices B and C contained exempt information according to paragraphs 14 and 16 of Schedule 12A of the 1972 Local Government Act, and as such any discussion of these documents would have to take place in private session. For this item, the Chair welcomed: Cllr Lynda Thorne Cabinet Member for Housing & Communities Jane Thomas Director of Adults, Housing & Communities Louise Bassett Assistant Director, Adult Services Laura Garvey-Cubbon OM Partnership & Joint Commissioning The Cabinet Member was invited to make an opening statement, in which she explained that the Welsh government provided grant funding to prevent homelessness and promote independent living among vulnerable individuals and families across the city. The Cabinet report sought approval for a phased plan to recommission a wide range of housing-related and specialised support services, including floating support for young people, a range of hostels, and services related to violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence (VAWDASV). Officers gave a presentation providing further detail, noting that a Housing Support Programme Strategy was in place to administer the Housing Support Grant (HSG), with the last strategy having been approved in January 2022 and subject to a mid-term review in February 2025. 41% of the grant supported the council to directly deliver prevention, advice, accommodation and support services, while the remaining 59% funded similar services delivered by 21 third sector partners, which included Llamau, the YMCA, the Huggard and the Salvation Army. Officers noted the impact of the pandemic and housing emergency on commissioning, as they had to redirect resources to manage surging demand for emergency accommodation and support for vulnerable individuals and families. They had quickly sourced significant additional self-contained accommodation, with nineteen new sites developed and mobilised, one site remodelled, and five emergency hotels used as homeless hostels. Crisis management focused on meeting statutory duties, which meant that longer-term strategic commissioning activities had to be delayed, and contracts extended to guarantee continuity of support. They outlined the approach to recommissioning, which would be phased due to the amount of commissioning required, and was due to be completed in March 2029. The goal was to prevent homelessness wherever possible, and where prevention was not possible to ensure it was rare, brief and not repeated. Commissioned services needed to remain responsive to both the volume and complexity of need across the city, and the key principles were psychologically informed services; co-production and innovation; evidence-based planning; effective use of resources; longer-term, strategic contracts and alignment with wider strategies. Officers explained that the first phase, running from October 2025 to March 2027, would involve four key services, namely floating support, refuge and community support, low level hostel provision and young persons’ accommodation. Phase 2 would cover more complex needs, including medium to high level hostel provision, Housing First, women with complex needs, rough sleeper assertive outreach and the substance misuse pathway, and would run from April 2026 to March 2028, before Phase 3 (January 2028 to March 2029) covered complex needs hostel provision and family accommodation. On the topic of procurement, officers explained that an open approach would seek to ensure transparency, fairness and value for money, with flexible pricing arrangements to allow costs to adapt over time. Market engagement events would be held, with a clear legislative framework to follow under the 2023 Procurement Act, and upcoming changes such as the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocations (Wales) Bill being closely monitored. Officers added that as the Housing Support Grant was received annually, contract arrangements would be adjusted as they went. Service planning and delivery had to be shaped by the experiences and needs of service users, some of whom can be hard to reach. The mid-term review had included extensive public consultation, which provided a solid evidence base. Members were invited to ask questions and make comments; the discussion is summarised below. Members noted the new framework and asked how the council would ensure continuity of the standard of services delivered by each provider. Officers cited robust contract monitoring frameworks and quarterly meetings with providers (monthly for some) as well as regularly monitored KPIs, as well as safeguarding arrangements and risk escalation processes. They also emphasised that three- and five-year contracts, with the option of a further two, were welcomed by the sector as they provided greater certainty and enabled providers to shape their services accordingly. Members asked about the mix of external and in-house service provision, in particular in terms of specialist advice, and heard that the new plan did not seek to change the existing ratio. They sought to work closely with third sector providers, bringing skills together and helping them to manage their performance monitoring arrangements. The Committee asked about the implications on the housing transfer list for a resident who moved, and heard that if it was only a temporary move they would remain on the list. If they accepted a permanent offer elsewhere they would be taken off the list as they wouldn’t need housing anymore. Members queried the position of tenants who had to leave the country, for example to care for a family member abroad, and heard that housing benefit stopped being paid after 13 weeks, which put them in arrears. This was an immediate problem if they were renting privately, but in council housing there were more robust arrangements to avoid evicting people. Members asked how quality was evaluated in the procurement process, and heard that all aspects of the tender were assessed and weighed accordingly. In more commercial contracts the price might be weighed higher than quality, but that wouldn’t be the case here. Members asked if the exact weighting scale had been determined yet, and heard that this had been set at 70:30 for the first contracts that were already out in Phase 1, and could be tweaked by officers as it progressed. Members queried the shift from family to single person housing need compared with 2019, and heard that this was due to a variety of reasons including prison leavers, asylum accommodation and the Home Office fast track process, as well as changes to legislation regarding rough sleeping. Individual cases could also be due to family or relationship breakdown, as well as cases where single people who were living with family or friends had to move out due to the increasing cost of living. The service delivered a lot of family accommodation too, such as the Gasworks scheme, but single persons’ homelessness had grown at a faster rate than family homelessness, and it was essential to get people in a position where they were able to sustain a tenancy in order to avoid a revolving door. Members asked about the safeguarding in place to prevent vulnerable people with substance abuse issues ending up clustered in supported accommodation, which could increase the risk of relapse or exploitation. Officers explained that the substance misuse specialist service looked closely at best practice across the UK, which generally involved smaller supported accommodation or a Housing First model, intensive wraparound support where needed and in particular a trauma-informed approach based understanding the individual’s needs. Members asked whether someone would lose their accommodation if they relapsed, and heard that this was not the case as it would only cause further trauma. In the past, ‘dry houses’ were commissioned for those who relapsed but they now knew that wasn’t the right approach, as recovery journeys were not always linear. Members queried how the total amount of housing units were split between in-house and externally commissioned provision. Officers were happy to provide a detailed breakdown of this after the meeting. Members noted that 38% of young people supported by Advice, Mediation and Tenancy Rescue had disengaged with the service, and asked how this was being managed. Officers explained that young people could fall out of that process for a number of reasons, and in some cases it could mean that they were remaining at home but just didn’t want that specific support. It was difficult to keep people at home with their families if they didn’t want to be there, and while they sought to repair relationships through mediation it was not always possible. Members were keen to see additional information about those who dropped out of the service, and in particular the key trends. AGREED: that the Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, writes to the Cabinet Member conveying the observations of the Committee when discussing the way forward.
Y penderfyniad fel y'i cofnodwyd
AGREED: that the Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, writes to the Cabinet Member conveying the observations of the Committee when discussing the way forward.
Members were provided with background information to aid their understanding of council house repairs in Cardiff. For this item, the Chair welcomed: Cllr Lynda Thorne Cabinet Member for Housing & Communities Jane Thomas Director of Adults, Housing & Communities Naomii Thomas Voids Manager The Cabinet Member was invited to make an opening statement, before officers gave a presentation updating the Committee on the Responsive Repairs Unit (RRU) Improvement Programme. Officers explained that there were more than 4,000 repair jobs a month across Cardiff’s 14,200 council homes, with 84% being carried out by the council’s in-house workforce made up of qualified and multi-skilled tradespeople. External contractors were commissioned to support specialist works or when the inhouse team lacked capacity, with a service specification in place for contractors setting out standards. The repairs reporting line sat within the Connect 2 Cardiff call centre, and there was a scheduling team to co-ordinate repairs and a Dry Homes team to oversee reports of damp and mould. Officers outlined a number of issues faced by the service, in particular during the pandemic when access to tenants’ homes was limited. This led to a major backlog of works following the pandemic, with a 30% increase in urgent works and difficulty recruiting tradespeople to respond to this demand. The council had also significantly increased the number of council properties in response to the housing emergency, and demand related to damp and mould had been higher than expected. In summary, the normal methods of managing repairs were no longer working, teams were becoming overwhelmed and complaints were high. In response to this, a comprehensive service review was carried out and an RRU Improvement Plan developed, which identified both immediate and systemic issues. These were split into six key areas: reducing outstanding works; work co-ordination and scheduling; workforce management and productivity; response to damp, mould and more complex cases; customer communication; and responses to complaints. An extensive action plan had been developed and would be continually refined and updated. Officers added that there had been 5,851 unallocated works as of May 2024, which had now been reduced by 91% to 530. Previously, urgent jobs weren’t being correctly prioritised and operatives’ diaries were full, but they had improved reporting and secured additional capacity. Operatives’ diaries also now kept space for urgent cases that arose. They had implemented a more dynamic approach to work management and scheduling, with regular reports on unallocated work for each trade, as well as a traffic light system to identify where action was needed. Trade plans had been developed to improve recruitment, workforce planning, skills development, contractor availability and access to materials, and scheduling processes and procedures had been refined to better plan ahead for training and seasonal peaks and troughs. Officers highlighted the importance of first-time fixes that avoided follow-up visits to improve productivity, and effectively identifying when pre-inspection was needed to prevent job creep. They also sought to reduce wasted calls due to tenants not being in (which sat at 13%, or 870 a month) with operators taking more time to allow elderly or vulnerable tenants to get to the door, and taking a picture of the front door to show they had called. Improved workforce management would also increase resilience, while live vehicle monitoring and improved contractor management would increase capacity. In the longer term, they would replace the complicated existing IT systems which didn’t always talk to each other with one tailor-made, specialist system, the search for which was at the scoping stage. Moving on to damp and mould cases specifically, officers noted that the previous huge increase in demand had led to there being 1,274 outstanding cases managed by the Dry Homes team, which now stood at 390. These were graded red, amber and green, and there were currently no red cases, while their external partner Savills had carried out more than 5,000 independent surveys on properties and had so far only identified three serious cases. Finally, officers noted the investigation by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (PSOW) following failings in the service, and that it intended to publish its findings while recognising improvements that had been made. Members were invited to ask questions and make comments; the discussion is summarised below. Members asked how many complaints had reached the PSOW in the last year, and why details of one specifically were being made public. Officers didn’t have the exact figure to hand but agreed to provide it following the meeting, noting that it was rare for complaints to make it that far. The ombudsman chose to publish their findings when there was a clear long-term failing in the public interest, and in this case had also specifically cited staff attitudes. The case demonstrated how overwhelmed the service was and how it had failed to address the issue properly. Officers added that the Governance & Audit Committee was overseeing the issue, but they could provide a briefing to CASSC as well when the report was published. Members discussed how the service responded efficiently to cases across Cardiff, and heard that a digital scheduling system was used to plan out journeys and reduce operatives’ travel time. The existing IT system didn’t do everything they wanted, so it would be upgraded, and they were keen to improve the tracking systems in vans as well and use technological tools to get a clearer citywide picture. Members asked how the time taken to do jobs was benchmarked against similar work done by the private sector, and heard that the system was based on Standard Minute Values (SMVs) for each job based on industry knowledge. Officers emphasised that the in-house team were rated much more highly than contractors overall when it came to carrying out repairs, and it was generally a lot cheaper to do in-house as it was not an attractive service for contractors to carry out, which was reflected in the cost. Members enquired about how tenants were kept informed of timescales throughout the process, and how their expectations were managed. Officers acknowledged that this was something that could be done more clearly earlier in the process, for instance when an inspection was needed to assess particular works. Members asked whether there could be a website or app for people to track repairs, and heard that the main IT system would need to be upgraded first. Members queried the standard timescales for repairs and heard that these were temporarily extended in order to get everything in the diary and give tenants a date. Emergency cases were 24 hours, but in practice they sought to get them done in 4, while urgent cases were 15 days and routine 45. Routine cases were generally lower-level issues, and people tended not to mind about waiting as long as they had a date. Some urgent cases, such as leaks, needed to be dealt with more quickly than the rest of their category, and there were also seasonal factors – for example, leaks or hot water failures were more serious in the winter. The backlog had been greatly reduced but some cases were still outstanding, generally more complex cases where tenants’ individual circumstances had to be taken into account. Members asked whether refusal of entry was still an issue after the pandemic and heard that it was, but officers did not know why. The service was seeking to improve its communication processes and texted tenants in advance, as well as often enabling them to choose the appointment time themselves. Some people were unable to receive the text directly because they didn’t have a phone, in which case the service identified someone to contact on their behalf. Members asked how people from ethnic minority communities who might be less confident speaking English could be helped to report repair needs effectively. Officers explained that most issues were reported over the phone, but vulnerable people could go into a Hub for assistance too, and the Language Line was available if they need to communicate in another language. Members emphasised the need for increased capacity within the repairs service at the same time as the council increased its housing supply, and heard that maintenance and repairs were a key part of any viability assessment for building new homes. At the moment, officers were assessing how to invest in new build properties in particular. Members asked about recruitment within the trade workforce and heard that this had been an issue since both Brexit and the pandemic, while some trades like scaffolding, plastering and carpentry were persistently difficult to recruit to because Cardiff lacked training courses due to low demand. The Repairs Academy worked with colleges and schools to encourage young people to take up a trade, as did the Women’s Network, but officers found that young people often just weren’t interested in difficult physical trades, so they focused on in-house provision and upskilling their own tradespeople. AGREED: that the Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, writes to the Cabinet Member conveying the observations of the Committee when discussing the way forward.
There were none.
Monday 17th November at 4:30pm.
Rhaid i gynghorwyr ddweud pan fydd ganddyn nhw gysylltiad personol â rhywbeth sy'n cael ei drafod, fel swydd, eiddo neu aelod o'r teulu. Mae buddiant sy'n rhagfarnu yn ddigon cryf i'r cynghorydd adael yr ystafell fel arfer a pheidio â chymryd rhan.
Littlechild: Buddiant personol
Ymwneud â gwaith allgymorth yn Y Rhath. Mae'r cofnodion yn nodi bod hyn yn berthnasol i bob un o brif eitemau'r agenda.
Yn rhestru cynghorwyr presennol y cyngor yn unig. Nid yw aelodau cyfetholedig, swyddogion a chyn-gynghorwyr yn cael eu dangos.