Agenda for Overview & Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday, 23rd July, 2019, 7.30 pm

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Conference Room, Civic Centre, Silver Street, Enfield, EN1 3XA. View directions

Contact: Stacey Gilmour 

Items
No. Item

178.

WELCOME & APOLOGIES

Minutes:

Councillor Erbil welcomed all attendees to the meeting.

Apologies had been received from Councillor Bernadette Lappage. Councillor Pite was substituting for Councillor Lappage.

179.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Members of the Council are invited to identify any disclosable pecuniary, other pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests relevant to the items on the agenda.

 

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

180.

COMPLAINTS AND INFORMATION ANNUAL UPDATE pdf icon PDF 80 KB

To receive the following reports from Dionne Grant, Complaints & Access to Information Manager:

·         Adults Statutory Complaints Annual Report 2018-19

·         Children’s Statutory Complaints Annual Report 2018-19

·         Corporate Annual Complaints and Information Report 2018-19

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee received reports from Dionne Grant (Complaints & Access to Information Manager) on the following-

 

Adults Statutory Complaints Annual Report 2018-19  -

The following was highlighted:

  1. There is a statutory duty for an annual report to be prepared for complaints made under the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009 (the Regulations).
  2. The team have resolved more issues at the early resolution stage. 56 concerns were resolved locally, an increase from 36 resolved locally last year.
  3. There has been an increase in formal complaints with 53 completed this year compared to 43, the previous year.
  4. Although the volume of complaints had risen, fewer were being upheld, 34% of complaints upheld this year compared to 40% last year.  91% of formal complaints were responded to within the required timescale compared to 73% last year.
  5. There were 14 enquiries from Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) which was a slight increase from 12 the previous year.
  6. Compliments had been received for the service, with 40 this year compared to 14 the previous year.

 

The following issues were raised-

·         The LGSCO contacted the Council regarding 14 cases concerning adult care services, five cases resulted in a full investigation and four of those cases were upheld.  It was asked what was meant by ‘upheld’.  A response was given that where the Ombudsman has found that a fault has been made, they will make recommendations which we would agree and implement.

·         That we had not received any cross-boundary cases (for example with Haringey), if there had, they would be included in the figures.

·         It was noted that there had been a slight increase in the number of formal complaints from last year, although this equated to only 0.75% of those receiving statutory Adult Social Care support.  In answer to a question about the main issues of complaint it was confirmed that the main areas related to financial and social care assessments.  In terms of the teams – the Hospitals/ Enablement/ Access/ OT had the largest number of formal complaints with 26 complaints completed.

·         There are action plans in place to ensure teams can learn from ombudsman findings. It was suggested that it would be useful to have further details on the four ombudsman complaints which had been upheld so that comparisons could be made and to find out what had been learnt from these cases.

·         It was noted that all complaints come to the Central Complaints team, follow up work/ action plans are prepared and details relating to cases are reported to the Departmental Management Team (DMT) and Executive Management Team (EMT).

·         It would be useful to be able to see a breakdown of complaints under the service areas, in the same way as compliments had been shown in a table in the report. From the four ombudsman complaints that had been upheld, it was not possible to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 180.

181.

MINUTES OF MEETING 18 JUNE 2019 pdf icon PDF 109 KB

To agree the minutes of the meeting 18 June 2019.

Minutes:

The minutes of the 18 June 2019 be confirmed with the additional comments below, requested by Councillor Aramaz -

 

Minute 98 – Meridian Water Strategic Infrastructure – Contractor Procurement HIF – Non-Rail

 

One of the issues raised during discussion was-

 Members questioned what would happen if the Council is unsuccessful in its bid or secures a materially lower amount of HIF funding than requested

 

Councillor Aramaz requested that the following be included -

 “there is emphasis of this being risky, that it is an accelerated approach and that we may not get the HIF funding”.

 

He also requested that where there is reference to -

“The multiple supplier framework approach is suitable for the scope of works given that the funding, the exact design and the land acquisition will not have been confirmed at the point of procurement”

 

There should also be reference to the following-

 

“We should ensure that a secondary bidder is also considered and meets all requirements, should appointment of the first bidder be unsuccessful”

 

182.

WORK PROGRAMME 2019/20 pdf icon PDF 261 KB

To review and agree the Overview & Scrutiny Committee Work Programme for 2019/20.

Minutes:

RECEIVED a copy of the work programme for 2019/20

  • Cabinet Members would be invited to attend future meetings of Overview and Scrutiny Committee to provide updates of their work/ priorities for their areas
  • The SEND places strategy report which was due to be considered at this meeting but would now go to the OSC meeting in February 2020.
  • ACMs (Associated Cabinet Members) – At the last meeting it was requested that they be invited to OSC meetings during the year to provide an update report on their individual areas.  It was mentioned that their programmes are to be put forward to Cabinet meeting in November. However, members were of the view that they be invited to OSC meetings before Cabinet.  The ACM’s would be asked how they see their role and what they intend to do over the next 6 months.

 

It had been agreed that the Associated Cabinet Members should be required to attend a future meeting of Overview and Scrutiny Committee to provide an update report on their respective areas.

 

Post Meeting Note:

ACM’s are required to produce an annual work programme to be presented to Cabinet every autumn.  OSC does not have the power to demand attendance of ACM’s to OSC meetings, this only applies to Cabinet members and officers at Head of Service level and above. However, the ACM work programmes can be examined by OSC and these have been scheduled into the OSC work programme.

 

183.

DATES OF FUTURE MEETINGS

To note the dates of future meetings as follows:

 

Business meetings of OSC

· Wednesday 4 September 2019

· Thursday 7 November 2019

· Wednesday 15 January 2020

· Thursday 13 February 2020

· Thursday 2 April 2020

 

Provisional Call-In dates

· Thursday 8 August 2019

· Thursday 19 September 2019

· Thursday 31 October 2019

· Thursday 28 November 2019

· Thursday 19 December 2019

· Thursday 30 January 2020

· Thursday 6 February 2020

· Wednesday 4 March 2020

· Thursday 26 March 2020

· Tuesday 28 April 2020

Minutes:

The dates of future meetings were noted:

 

Business meetings of OSC

· Wednesday 4 September 2019

· Thursday 7 November 2019

· Wednesday 15 January 2020

· Thursday 13 February 2020

· Thursday 2 April 2020

 

Provisional Call-In dates

· Thursday 8 August 2019

· Thursday 19 September 2019

   Thursday 31 October 2019

· Thursday 28 November 2019

· Thursday 19 December 2019

· Thursday 30 January 2020

· Thursday 6 February 2020

· Wednesday 4 March 2020

· Thursday 26 March 2020

· Tuesday 28 April 2020