Agenda and minutes
Venue: Committee Room 4, Brent Town Hall, Forty Lane, Wembley, HA9 9HD. View directions
Contact: Lisa Weaver, Democratic Services Officer 020 8937 1358 Email: lisa.weaver@brent.gov.uk
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Declarations of personal and prejudicial interests Members are invited to declare at this stage of the meeting any relevant financial or other interest in the items on the agenda. Minutes: Councillor Colwill informed the committee that he was a member of the BHP partnership.
Councillor Pavey declared an interest in item 6 as he was the Chair of the Wembley Locality Advisory Board
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Deputations (if any) Minutes: None |
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Minutes of the last meeting held on 24 July 2012 PDF 98 KB The minutes are attached. Minutes: The minutes of the meeting held on 24 July 2012 were approved as an accurate record of proceedings. |
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Matters arising Minutes: None |
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Complaints annual report PDF 246 KB This report provides members with information on how the council has dealt with complaints during 2011/12 and the impact of the revised 2 stage complaints procedure. Minutes: Phillip Mears, Corporate Complaints Manager informed the Committee that there were three separate complaints policies, a corporate policy which dealt with 90% of complaints and two social care policies for adult social care and children and families as governed by statute. It was clarified that the complaints covered in the reports were from residents, businesses and services users.
Phillip Mears explained that nine out of 10 complaints had been successfully resolved at the first stage of the complaints process with a complaints escalated to stages two and three reducing by 39% 26% respectively. It was reported that the Council had the best result in London in terms of the number of adverse Ombudsman decisions as a percentage of all decisions made. The Brent figure was 12% (nine complaints) having a finding of fault compared to the London average of 27% and a national average of 21%. There was an overall reduction of complaints received by 9% with a significant reduction in revenues and benefits and Brent housing partnership.
Phillip Mears reported that children and families received 181 complaints with 7% being escalated to stage two and adult social care receiving 115 complaints and only two escalating to stage two. The priorities for the next year included the implementation of the two stage process, one corporate complaints database and the addition of housing management complaints including the housing management ombudsman and tenant panels.
During queries from the members, it was clarified that service improvements were not necessarily always implemented following a complaint but managers were encouraged to capture lessons learnt as a result of negative feedback and where complaints were upheld, action was taken. It was highlighted that the response time for children and family and adult social care complaints was poor and it was noted that this had been recognised and an action plan had been developed in consultation with Director of Adult Social Care to build capacity and improve performance within the department. Additionally the new corporate database was being implemented that would help track outstanding responses and flag up overdue cases. Phillip Mears agreed to investigate why the on time response rate had dropped from 72% to 39% and report back to members.
It was queried what the compensation payments were for complaints settled at stage one. It was noted that individual case figures had not been provided within table four but Phillip Mears agreed to provide the information to members.
It was queried whether the list included complaints from Councillors. It was clarified that the list did not include complaints from Councillors and members expressed concern that potentially large number of resident complaints made through Councillors which were not included within the statics provided. It was noted that the new complaints database could potentially provide the information regarding Councillor complaints and Phillip Mears would take that back and investigate further.
It was noted that the amount of compensation regarding adult and social care complaints had increased despite the number of escalated complaints dropping. It was felt that ... view the full minutes text for item 5. |
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Working with families initiative The presentation will cover:
· The background to the Brent Working with Families project and its links to the government’s Troubled Families Initiative · Progress on developing a new approach to working with families · The outcomes expected from the new approach · Taking the project forward
This item will be presented by Phil Newby.
Minutes: Robert Hardy, Project Manager, gave a presentation which highlighted the vision of the working with family’s initiative as well as an update on the project so far. He felt that resilience was key in families and a family would not deliberately be in their position but would be there as the result of an incident to one or more family members tipping the family into a precarious position. The initiative would look at the underlying cause to a families problems rather than treating just the symptoms and recognise that although early intervention was key, some issues were entrenched across generations.
The project was a Brent project consisting of numerous partners and work had been carried out into exploring current excellent practice and building upon that as a base as well as the earlier troubled family’s initiative. It was explained that Government had identified 810families in Brent under the previous troubled families initiative which would be used as the target figure for the working with families initiative, with 300 families worked with in year one, 405 year two and 105 in year three. The families had been identified using a set of four criteria including a set of Brent specific criterion and the families for the first year had been identified and work was being undertaken into identifying the families for year two.
It was clarified that there was potential for the council to inherit the funding from another local authority if a troubled family moved into the borough or for the family to continue to use the services they need. It was hoped that the scheme would help more than the government target of 810 however 810 families were to be targeted to receive the upfront funding and funding if outcomes were achieved from central government, a total of £2m. A three pronged approach was being undertaken; creation of a multiagency hub, a family support service and the development of a wider services aligned strategy. It was felt that a swifter, joined up approach of initial contacts was required as 11000 contacts are made, 5000 of which referred by the police but only 2000overal resulted in an initial assessment.
Members queried what the budget for the project was and whether funding from other departments would be used to fund the project. It was explained that £2m over three years would be paid by central government and services would be reassembled. It was noted that 26 posts had been identified for the project and a savings target of £1.3m had been identified.
Members expressed concern over families seeing the scheme as an incentive and purposefully presenting themselves as a troubled family. It was explained that the scheme was challenging and families would not necessarily want to face the challenges of the scheme which the hoped would prevent the scheme from acting as an incentive.
Members queried the level of partnership working as previous schemes had failed and expressed particular concerns as the Police did not have a relationship with persons. It ... view the full minutes text for item 6. |
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Performance and finance review Q1 PDF 117 KB Report updating members with a corporate overview of Finance and Performance information. Additional documents: Minutes: Phil Newby, Director of Strategy, Partnership and Place, explained that a greater amount of benchmarking information was available and indicators had refined to have greater meaning. An overview of each service area was given, highlighting any concerns and pressures in future, particularly for high demand services such as waste and social care. A full update on the One Council programme will be given at the next meeting however, two projects were currently red and the budget was currently facing pressures of a potential £2m overspend.
During queries from members, it was clarified that only the procurement project was now red, with work being undertaken to address concerns. Concern was expressed over the continued overspend in children and families and whether the budget may not have been correct. With the SEN project going from red to amber, it was queried how many statements had been issued and how many had been refused. Phil Newby agreed forward this information to members. Members queried the number of foster carers being 110 with a target of 127 and why that was considered red. It was explained that Brent previously did not have enough in house foster carers but following a project the trend had now reversed however carers able to look after children with specialised needs were still required in house. It was highlighted that there were no indicators surrounding adoptions. Phil Newby agreed to discuss the creation of indicators with the children and families director and to update the committee at the next meeting. Members queried the lack of benchmarking for all indicators and it was clarified that the figures were from a wider London Benchmarking club and were only available for indicators that other Councils wished to benchmark against also.
RESOLVED:-
that the report be noted |
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One Council Overview and Scrutiny work programme PDF 49 KB The work programme is attached. Minutes: The Chair requested that members inform himself or Priya Mistry of any items they wished to see on the agenda at future meetings. During discussions it was agreed than an update would be given on all red projects on the one council programme and if a project was consistently red, a detailed report would come to the committee. Councillor Colwill requested that SEN and school places be placed on the agenda.
RESOLVED:-
it was agreed that the One Council Programme will be a standing item on the agenda and the Phil Newby will be briefed on all red projects prior to the meeting to provide a verbal update to the committee
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Date of next meeting The next meeting of the One Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee is scheduled for 5 December 2012 Minutes: The next meeting of the One Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee will take place on 5 December 2012. |
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Any other urgent business Notice of items raised under this heading must be given in writing to the Democratic Services Manager or his representative before the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 64. Minutes: None |