Agenda item

To propose amendments to the Brent Health and Wellbeing Board Terms of Reference to allow relevant Council Directors to be included as voting members.

Wendy Marchese (Strategic Partnerships Manager, Brent Council) introduced the report, which set out an initial proposal to amend the Brent Health and Wellbeing Board Terms of Reference to allow relevant Council Directors to be included as voting members. In outlining the rationale behind this proposal, she advised that the proposal was to ensure that all members could participate in the Board in equal partnership and ensure governance arrangements reflected current legislation and evolving system expectations, bringing Brent more in line with practice across other local Health and Wellbeing Boards. In concluding her introduction, she advised that the report was intended as an initial step to ensure the Board’s arrangements were up to date and ready for inclusion in the refreshed Constitution. A wider review of the Terms of Reference was expected as the system evolved and the Integrated Care Board became a 13 borough North and West London ICB. As such, the Board was requested to agree in principle to the initial change to voting membership and agree for amendments to the Terms of Reference to reflect that change to be brought forward through the appropriate governance processes.

The Chair thanked Wendy Marchese for her introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following points raised:

• Councillor Board members felt that the report did not detail the advantages on a practical level of expanding voting rights to senior officers of the Council, expressing that they felt it would reduce their own democratic voice on the Board, and confuse the operations of the Board when officers who presented reports were also voting members.
• In response to a query in relation to section 3.1.2 of the report detailing a number of local authorities whose membership arrangements included senior officers as voting members, Wendy Marchese advised that the list detailed examples of where this was done and not the entirety of local authorities who had those arrangements in place.
• Councillor Nerva provided further context behind the proposal, referencing the Health and Wellbeing Act 2012 which specified who the relevant members should be on a Health and Wellbeing Board, which he described as a unique body in the public sector bringing together partners on an equal basis from the local authority, various parts of the NHS, HealthWatch, and other organisations the Board wished to invite, such as the care sector representatives Brent’s Board currently included. There had been an assumption within the 2012 legislation that local authority statutory officers, in this case the Director of Adult Social Care, Corporate Director of Children, Young People and Community Development, and Director of Public Health, were members of Health and Wellbeing Board in their own right. Rachel Crossley (Corporate Director Service Reform and Strategy, Brent Council) further added that the Health and Wellbeing Board was not a traditional Council Committee but a partnership Board focused on the wider health and wellbeing system rather than on executive decisions.
• The Board were not minded to agree to the recommendations of the report at this stage, and suggested that the report be noted and Terms of Reference passed to the Director of Law to review, in terms of their compliance with relevant legislation, as part of the constitutional review taking place. 
• As a further suggestion to the membership, Councillor Donnelly-Jackson proposed a housing representative from Crisis was included. This would also be taken forward as part of the constitutional review.

As no further issues were raised, the Chair drew the discussion to a close, noting the following resolutions:

i)               To refer the report and proposed amendments to the Terms of Reference to the Director of Law to review as part of the constitutional review, with a view to ensuring the Terms of Reference and membership were compliant with the current relevant legislation.

ii)              To incorporate a housing representative from Crisis into the membership as part of the Terms of Reference Refresh that would be undertaken as part of the constitutional review.