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The decisions as the council's minutes record them. A plain-language summary follows once it has been written.
AGREED – • That the Committee thank the Lead Member and Senior Officers for this crucial report on the needs of care for the most vulnerable people in our society. • The Committee commend the achievements made this far by the department and look forward to the report coming back to Committee in 2025
AGREED – i. That the Committee thanked the Lead Member and Officers for the report and for listening to the committee in previous meetings. ii. It appears all Community Councils are on board with the new communication system in place within Community Councils Clerks and the CA and with Community Councils with WCBC Social Service. iii. The Committee would ask that Officers look at better allocations of the resource in relation the number of people per Community Agent. Also to look at a system of cover for sickness, holidays and maternity leave. iv. The Committee welcome further improvements in the Community Agents service throughout the County Borough in 2025
Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Beryl Blackmore, Annette Davies and Alison Tynan
The minutes of the meeting held on the 21 February 2024 were submitted. AGREED – That the Minutes of the meeting held on 21 February 2024 be signed as a correct record
There were no declarations of interest made at this meeting
The Chief Officer Governance & Customer submitted a report (COGC16/24) asking Members to consider the Committee’s work programme. The Scrutiny Facilitator introduced the report, referring in particular to the proposed changes as follows which were highlighted in the work programme (as attached at Appendix 1 to the report). A Topic Request form entitled ‘Child Poverty’ had been received. This will be shared with officers and will be scheduled for discussion in June Scrutiny Committee. This will involve a cross departmental report to be collated across Social Care, Economy & Education with representatives from all at the committee. Another Topic Request form entitled ‘Library Services’ had been received and would be going to Scrutiny Co-ordinating Group after which it would be shared with the relevant officers. It was felt that this committee would not be the appropriate one for consideration of this topic and that the Scrutiny Co-ordinating Group would best be able to decide where it is most appropriately considered.
Decision as recorded
AGREED – • That the Committee thank the Lead Member and Senior Officers for this crucial report on the needs of care for the most vulnerable people in our society. • The Committee commend the achievements made this far by the department and look forward to the report coming back to Committee in 2025
The Lead Member for Children’s Services submitted a report COSC/08/24 which provided Members with an overview of progress in eliminating profit from care. In 2022 Welsh government set up a Programme Board chaired by the Chief Social Care Officer for Wales, Albert Heaney which was supported by a Programme Team. The purpose of the Programme Board was to work collectively to consider evidence and develop proposals for implementing the Programme for Government commitment to ‘Eliminate private profit from the care of looked after children’. In his introduction the Lead Member emphasised the aim to remove the profit element from provision of children’s social care. The goal is to manage costs which would be welcome due to budget demands but also to ensure good local and regional provision of care to children with high needs. The common theme was the importance of bringing care closer to home and our main priority was, and would remain, the welfare of our children. He referred to two of the tables at 4.1 in the report which showed the current position in Wrexham in relation to Looked After Children. The Lead Member informed committee members that our goal, as outlined by the First Minister, was to aim to keep children with their families and where that was not possible the aim was to keep children in the community for example in foster placements or in residential placements closer to home. He stated that now and again that it may be necessary for a child to be placed out of community. Rhian Thomas, Senior Head of Children’s Social Care introduced Donna Roberts, Head of Service for Corporate Parenting in doing so expressed how pleased she was to bring the report to committee, she informed members that the report covered all of the achievements made over the past twelve months and that she was proud of the vast amount of work that had taken place by Children’s Services in relation to eliminating profit from care. Work undertaken had resulted in a reduction on demands on services as well as setting up new services and developing new interventions. There are four key strategic objectives to eliminating profit in Wrexham. These were listed as:- · Develop early help services to reduce the number of children needing to come into care, thereby reducing our demand for placements. · Increase the capacity of in house fostering, and residential services to provide care for Wrexham children, and thereby reduce our dependency on private providers. · Work proactively with families and carers to move children successfully and safely on from the care system into long term permanent families. · Work with the Children Commissioning Consortium Cymru (4C’s) Network to stimulate the development of non-profit providers, and remove for profit companies from the commissioning framework. The Chair of the Committee welcomed Donna Roberts, Head of Service -Corporate Parenting, to the meeting and opened the floor for debate. The following issues were highlighted: · Recognition of the clear evidence of improvement and progress made in many areas · The access to some of the existing services had been expanded further with the aim of reaching and supporting a wider range of service users, as well as pilot schemes that had been introduced, which had created a positive impact. · Was further work required in working with others including schools as a preventative measure? · A significant part of the Act was related to preventative work and the importance of working with the right partners to ensure the right action was taken at the right time. · Assurance given that Officers work closely with education partners at all levels of intervention and a significant amount of preventative work was ongoing and the importance of working with the right partners to ensure the right action. · Clarification sought on cases of Special Guardianship Orders and whether they remain permanent until adulthood. Was there a review on the funding into adulthood? · Confirmation that Special Guardianship Orders are a private order within court. Regarding funding for Special Guardianship, a private citizen may have a Financial Means Assessment, this would be carried out annually to assess if financial support could be given up to the age of 18 years old. · A member asked a question in relation to what the profit gained by private care companies would be. · The Chief Officer Social Care responded stating that was a difficult question to answer as each company would have different profit margins. He added that on a positive note the report had made the department look at their own services and had helped them to have a degree of control over the cost of care. This is very challenging and as we develop more and more care options we are giving ourselves more care choices and greater control of the market · Welcome news that the Multi Systemic Therapy Partnership Project is operational and is supporting the goal of a reduction in the number of looked after children in residential care. · It was recognised that independent organisations provide a valuable service and will continue to do so in years to come. Any transition to eliminating or reducing profit from care would, it was hoped, would be a smooth process. AGREED – • That the Committee thank the Lead Member and Senior Officers for this crucial report on the needs of care for the most vulnerable people in our society. • The Committee commend the achievements made this far by the department and look forward to the report coming back to Committee in 2025
Decision as recorded
AGREED – i. That the Committee thanked the Lead Member and Officers for the report and for listening to the committee in previous meetings. ii. It appears all Community Councils are on board with the new communication system in place within Community Councils Clerks and the CA and with Community Councils with WCBC Social Service. iii. The Committee would ask that Officers look at better allocations of the resource in relation the number of people per Community Agent. Also to look at a system of cover for sickness, holidays and maternity leave. iv. The Committee welcome further improvements in the Community Agents service throughout the County Borough in 2025
The Lead Member for Adult Services, (Councillor John Pritchard) submitted a report (COSC/07/24) to provide Members with an update following the Scrutiny Committee meeting in November 2023, which evaluated the operation of the Community Agent project and the review carried out to inform future models of delivery. In introducing the report the Lead Member drew members’ attention to the Appendices of the report which provided a summary of the steps taken including the introduction of a suite of template documents, peer support and overall improvement in governance. He also informed Committee Members of the following points: · a decision was made to maintain the current, hybrid commissioning model · the report provided assurances that concerns raised previously were listened to and acted upon · positive steps had been taken by commissioning officers, community councils and providers to deliver the service improvements outlined. · the documents will adhere to General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and Data Protection standards. The Chief Officer Social Care informed members that the model brought stronger communication for the Community Agent and improved ongoing relations. He referred to the value of Community Agents in what they bring to each area as well as recognition of the need for them to feel protected and supported. A discussion ensued and the following points were raised: · Recognition that without the service older people and people with disabilities could lose a local connection to services. · Acknowledgement that Officers had recognised the strategic advances of improving the current model and that concerns raised previously had been listened to and acted upon. · A member referred to the loss of a Social Care Worker position in their area. · Assurances were given by the Chief Officer Social Care that the Community Agents were not being used as Social Workers. · The role of the Community Agent is to provide short term intervention and support. · Reference was made to the benefits that the service had brought to local communities with early intervention and support to reduce isolation and provide guidance about services. · There can be a lack of understanding of the role of the CA, we can assist with that. The help and support was not intended to be ongoing, it was short term intervention to help people to help themselves. · Was there the possibility of providing Community Agents with an Identity Badge? · Work had been carried out with the local university to design and provide a badge. Having found a solution the Community Councils would need to take this forward. · Resources allocation - Consideration of the variation in size and need of communities. Could Officers look at allocation of the resources in relation the number of people for each Community Agent? · A plan will be put in place to move to a needs based model. · What were the expectations of the feedback from the forms completed by the Community Agents and how regularly was the data analysed · Assurances were given Steve Latham-White, Commissioning and Planning Officer, Social Care Services, that moving forward the paperwork would provide information, such as showing that the support provided initially was not creating a dependency · Two meetings a month were held in Wrexham, these were scheduled for mornings. Was there some flexibility with times of future meetings? · Vicky Bishop, Head of Service Older People, Social Care Services Assured members that the times of the meetings with Community Agents could be made more flexible. AGREED – i. That the Committee thanked the Lead Member and Officers for the report and for listening to the committee in previous meetings. ii. It appears all Community Councils are on board with the new communication system in place within Community Councils Clerks and the CA and with Community Councils with WCBC Social Service. iii. The Committee would ask that Officers look at better allocations of the resource in relation the number of people per Community Agent. Also to look at a system of cover for sickness, holidays and maternity leave. iv. The Committee welcome further improvements in the Community Agents service throughout the County Borough in 2025
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