Decision details
Motions
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
Decision:
16.1 The following motion submitted by the Conservative Group was approved:
Protecting and Raising the Quality of Adult Social Care in Brent
This Council notes:
· The unprecedented times that the country is facing and the role local government has in providing local stability and leadership in these tumultuous times.
· The irreplaceable role that local council plays at the heart of communities, providing key public services that protect the most defenceless in society – children at risk, disabled adults and vulnerable older people and the services we all rely on, like clean streets, libraries and children’s centres.
· That councils up and down the UK are at breaking point, with disproportionate reductions in local council funding and comparison to the rest of the public sector.
· That councils had to spend an extra £800m in the last financial year to meet the demand on vital services to protect children and that, with an ageing population and growing demand, adult social care faces a gap of over £2bn in the next financial year.
· In Brent, as with all other council departments, adult social care has had to make significant budget savings in the past, and continues to need to make savings in the future, with a target of reducing the overall spend by £4.1m on adult social care by 2021. This is in the context of an aging population and increasing demand for services.
· Brent has an estimated prevalence of 2,470 patients living with dementia, of whom only 1,834 (74.2%) are diagnosed. This leaves an estimated 1034 undiagnosed patients living with dementia who could benefit from early diagnosis and follow up and support in the community. Brent seeks to address this gap in service with a view to providing early interventions to support people with dementia and their carers to live longer in their own homes.
· The extra £1.5bn for social care in the Government’s recent spending round - £1 billion through a new grant and £500 million through the adult social care precept.
· To implement reform – which will involve difficult choices about how to raise money to pay for services – the Government must set up an independent, cross-party inquiry on social care funding, as the Institute for Government recommended last year. This would be the best mechanism to build the public and parliamentary support needed to deliver change, with the last major attempt to reform social care funding. Then, once political support is secured, legislation will have to be passed.
· This council also notes and commends the work done with partners progressing Brent as a Dementia Friendly Borough which has been recognised nationally. This will include GP practices, leisure services, libraries, the Alzheimer’s Society, supermarkets such as Tesco, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, London Ambulance Service, Metropolitan Police, London Fire Brigade, local cinemas and art venues.
The Council therefore resolves:
To write to the Health Secretary Matt Hancock MP and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid MP.
The Council requests that the Leader of the Council:
(1) Asks the Health Secretary for the Social Care Green Paper which includes a range of options for securing a sustainable funding solution for adult social care, financial protection and support for informal carers.
(2) Asks the Health Secretary for increased accountability and regulatory powers for the Care Quality Commission.
(3) Ensures the Council sign up to the Ethical Care Charter which establishes a minimum baseline for the safety, quality and dignity of care by ensuring employment conditions support a more stable workforce.
(4) Improve access to care support through the Brent Dementia Steering Group in order to ensure that health professionals inform patients of the support available to them at the point of diagnosis.
(5) Continue to work with our strategic and community partners to progress actions which provides leadership on being a Dementia Friendly Borough.
16.2 The following motion submitted by the Labour Group was approved:
Small Changes, Big Impacts – Community Wealth-Building in Brent
This Council notes:
· The Public Services (Social Value) Act was introduced in 2012. It provides a legal basis for public authorities to look for wider social, economic and environmental benefits when undertaking procurement exercises.
· Last year, councils across London spent hundreds of millions of pounds buying in essential goods, services and expertise from the private and third sectors.
· Insourcing, can, involve lower costs, a public sector ethos, economies of scale and an enhanced level of democratic accountability to local residents.
· After years of strife, Preston Council took a different approach to how they operate, and this is now starting to bear fruit. Similarly, we want to see as much of Brent’s money invested, in every sense of the word, in this borough.
· This authority has joined the Co-Operative Councils’ Innovation Network, a collaboration of 25 like-minded authorities, collectively holding budgets of £8.75 billion – with a view to finding better ways of working for, and with, people to the benefit of their communities.
· Community wealth-building aims to revive local economies, renew trust in local services and deliver a renaissance of local government; by giving local businesses and local communities a bigger stake in the local economy.
· The Labour Party has published a report entitled “Democratising Local Public Services: A Plan for Twenty-First Century Insourcing” setting out its radical blueprint to support and rebuild public services under a future Labour Government.
This council further notes:
· In procuring services over the last two years we’ve created 164 jobs through contracts; 94 new apprenticeships and 277 training opportunities at BTEC and NVQ equivalent level.
· Over the next two years, through diligent contract management a further £26m will be spent in Brent’s local supply chain.
· We have driven up social value, by connecting the widespread regeneration of Brent with the supply chain at our regular “Meet the Buyer” events; with contracts worth a cumulative total of £100m on offer to over 140 small and medium sized enterprises.
· We work with local anchor institutions, recently providing finance to the United Colleges Group for a new site, enhancing post-16 Education and potentially unlocking over one thousand desperately needed homes, at their site in Willesden Green.
· We are proud to have been an accredited a London Living Wage employer through the London Living Wage Foundation since 2013; and, we continue to offer the first business rates discount in the UK for accredited Living Wage Employers in the borough.
· We continue to make in-house and Brent-based options for the services we provide; with this Labour Council insourcing amongst a crowded field: the estate cleaning service, housing management, uniformed street litter patrols, council tax collection and crucially our procurement service.
This Council believes:
· That residents are 8 times more likely to trust local councillors to take decisions on their behalf over and above MPs and Ministers. Furthermore, 5 times more people trust their local councils over and above Government to take the best decisions on their behalf.
· That while residents support their local councils to run services and redistribute wealth, Local Government still requires the financial resources to catalyse new social contracts and make public services, local.
This Councils resolves to call on Cabinet:
(1) To develop a Social Value and Ethical Procurement Policy setting out how this council can ensure that our local community is central to the way we purchase goods and services, setting out how our small changes can have big impacts across the local economy.
(2) To demystify the Council’s procurement process, through regular training sessions, upskilling more local businesses on the tendering process – to enable Brent based traders to compete on a level playing field with larger corporations and work with Brent Council to provide vital works, services and goods.
(3) To continue to make provision for in-house services the default option, whilst setting out the strong standards for tendering, bid evaluation and contract management for any other alternative.
16.3The following motion submitted by the Labour Group was approved:
Our Community. Our Health Care
This Council notes:
· The Government has presided over the longest funding squeeze in the NHS’ history; deepened by cuts to Public Health Services and Adult Social Care.
· There are currently over 100,000 staff vacancies in NHS England, including 41,000 nurses and nearly 10,000 doctors. This figure could easily rise to 350,000 by 2030 according to research conducted by The King’s Fund, the Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust.
· There are similarly 17,000 fewer hospital beds now than in 2010.
· The impact of Conservative cuts to public services and rising poverty are evident in the new Long Term Plan, with NHS England calculating that socioeconomic inequality causes £4.8 billion a year in greater numbers of hospitalisations.
· Nine years of austerity, cuts and privatisation have resulted in nearly 2.8 million people waiting over 4 hours in A&E last year, over 540,000 patients waiting over 18 weeks for treatment and NHS waiting lists growing to over 4.3 million.
· The underlying deficit of nearly half of the NHS trusts which provide secondary care to patients referred by a GP is close to £5 billion.
This Council further notes, the consequences of these swingeing cuts:
· North West London Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) face a significant deficit in the forthcoming year, with a projected deficit of £112m. The clinical commissioning group for Brent represents £9m of this debt.
· While North West London’s population has grown by 5%, funding is stagnant, and worsened by unplanned emergency care rising by 25%.
· In 2018, London North West Healthcare Trust received a second Requires Improvement report from the CQC.
· Proposals to merge eight CCGs in North West London into one CCG by April 2021 will lead to yet more re-organisation, change and ultimately disruption to residents.
· Public Health funding for Brent services such as smoking cessation and alcohol recovery treatment have again been cut by the Government, by £0.5m for the next year.
· Age UK states there is a “perfect storm” in the Adult Social Care sector with parts facing “total collapse”; with £8 billion needed to stabilise the system and tackle increasing complex care. The latest promised Government green paper on the sector has been delayed at least six times over the last 18 months.
· According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Mental Health Trusts have less money in real terms to spend on mental health now than in 2012 and the number of mental health nurses has fallen by 4,000.
· IFS analysis indicates that if we leave the EU, the public purse is likely to lose enough money each year to fund the whole of NHS England for 3 months.
This Council believes:
· The NHS belongs to the people; it is Labour’s proudest achievement, designed for universal healthcare for all on the basis of need, free at the point of use - the NHS should always have the resource to provide a comprehensive system, where everyone counts.
· The NHS should work across organisational and geographical boundaries, to facilitate services for every resident.
· The Government has passed the buck with cuts to public services delegated to our local NHS, resulting in a hollowing out of services in Brent and the surrounding area.
· Residents and members of the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny committee are concerned about the styming of access to GP services across the borough and upon its boundaries: with Cricklewood GP Centre under consultation to cease its walk-in provision; and Central Middlesex Urgent Care Centre consulting to curtail its hours of operation; and Pembridge Hospice in Ladbroke Grove closing its doors to new admissions.
· The reduction of services from Central Middlesex UCC will impact on our poorest residents, without access to their own vehicles, with alternative services involving lengthy journeys by public transport at night, upwards of an hour.
· These changes will be felt far and wide across the health economy, as more residents seek support through accident and emergency or via their general practitioner.
· The sustained reduction in the ability of the NHS to provide essential services affects everyone, young to old and certainly those most vulnerable.
The Council resolves:
To work with Brent’s Members of Parliament, to voice our opposition to any future arrangements in which alterations to local NHS services threaten the safety of patients or residents alike, and re-affirm the need for health services to put people at the heart of any future plans.
Publication date: 18/09/2019
Date of decision: 16/09/2019
Decided at meeting: 16/09/2019 - Council
Accompanying Documents: