Invitees

Cllr Phil White, Cabinet Member – Social Services and Early Help;

Susan Cooper Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing;

Jacqueline Davies, Head of Adult Social Care;

Laura Kinsey, Head of Children’s Social Care

The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing presented the Director of Social Services’ draft Annual Report for 2017/18 for comment and requested that the Committee note the judgements reached locally about social care services in Bridgend.  The Annual Report is based on the Authority’s self-assessment of the performance and delivery of social care services. 

The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing explained that the Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) from October 2016, had changed the way they inspect children’s and adult social services and following the implementation of the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014, the CIW had developed a new framework which aims to ensure that authorities are inspected using the wellbeing outcomes of the Act.  The aim of the Annual Report is to provide an overview of social care in the County Borough and is evidence based, with contributions made by staff and includes feedback from service users.  She stated that the template for the report follows the six national quality standards for wellbeing.

The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing informed the Committee that the priorities for improvement reflect the analysis of performance and addresses the challenging context of the Medium Term Financial Strategy with that of increasing demand for those in need.

The Committee requested details of the number of looked after children at present.  The Head of Children’s Social Care informed the Committee that the number of looked after children as at last week was 374 and is constantly changing.  The trend overall shows a downward one which contrasts to the picture nationally where the numbers of looked after children are increasing.  The Committee questioned how this compared with the picture in England and Scotland.  The Head of Children’s Social Care informed the Committee that there are similar issues in England to that experienced with looked after children in Wales with numbers increasing.  She stated that the practice deployed in Scotland to reduce the number of looked after children could be considered. 

The Committee questioned the reasons for the downward trend in the number of looked after children in the County Borough.  The Head of Children’s Social Care informed the Committee that the authority is working proactively with Early Help and families to prevent children from becoming looked after and arrangements for special guardianship orders are also in place.  She stated that the Regulator is satisfied that the authority has the correct thresholds in place to keep children living safely with their families.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing confirmed that the most important element of reducing the number of looked after children is to do so safely and there is a whole system approach to do this. 

The Committee questioned whether there are plans to bring looked after children who are in placements in England back so that they cared for closer to home.  The Head of Children’s Social Care informed the Committee that there is a great deal being done to address this issue, namely, the residential remodelling project.  She stated that some looked after children could not be cared for locally due to their specific needs.  The authority is however extending its provision through the residential remodelling project.  Approaches are routinely made to neighbouring local authorities to establish whether they have provision for this authority’s looked after children, but they mostly experience similar shortages in provision as this authority.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing informed the Committee that looked after children is a major priority for the Directorate.

The Committee asked whether greater use of ICT systems could be made in the Directorate.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing informed the Committee that the WCCIS is now used by 13 local authorities In Wales and RCT and Merthyr Councils had now signed up as users.  Further use of ICT is made to support service users of Telecare which enables them to live more independently.  Staff in the Homecare service are equipped with tablet devices to enable them to access shift and rota patterns.  Service users can make use of the Dewis portal to enable them to gather information that they need on the availability of social care services.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing informed the Committee that short-term services were being piloted linked to the WCCIS system.  She stated that she would include a paragraph in the Annual Report on the use of ICT.

The Committee referred to Quality Standard 5 and questioned whether courses are offered to service users to support them to develop and maintain healthy domestic, family and personal relationships or are there thresholds in place.  The Head of Children’s Social Care informed the Committee that children are offered a range of services and targeted campaigns are done.  Children are encouraged to engage with activities and also have one to one support, with the Wellbeing service running a Get on Track programme and play schemes.  Work had been commissioned to develop an app for looked after children and work placements are also offered.  The Committee asked whether these services were also offered to looked after children who are in out of county placements.  The Head of Children’s Social Care informed the Committee that the service endeavoured to offer looked after children equality of opportunity if they are in out of county placements.  Placement providers will signpost looked after children to opportunities that are available to them. 

The Committee referred to the implementation of the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014 and Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and asked whether they impact on the budget and bring additional pressures to the service.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing informed the Committee that the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014 had brought additional pressures but no additional funding had been made available by the Welsh Government for its implementation, apart from the availability of funding of ICF monies to be used across the region.  She stated that the sustainability of services is important and the services delivered are demand-led.  Services and their financial viability were being reviewed as part of the budget reduction proposals.  The Cabinet Member Social Services and Early Help informed the Committee that a meeting would be taking place with the Cabinet Secretary on 16 July to discuss the use of the £100m transformation grant funding for health and social care.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing informed the Committee that a Parliamentary review had been concluded and that funding of £100m would be available to be spent across the region over 2 years.  She stated that the challenge now is the realignment of the health board boundary to Cwm Taf, and the need for Bridgend to receive its fair share of that funding and which would bring about a whole systems change. 

The Committee questioned the Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing on her thoughts on the realignment of the health boundary and plans to continue with the Western Bay region.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing commented that Bridgend has a very strong foothold in the Western Bay region and with the realignment of the health board boundary; it now needed to develop a strong foothold with Cwm Taf.  Officers from Bridgend were now attending planning meetings with Cwm Taf Health Board and RCT and Merthyr Councils to take forward what is a new partnership for Bridgend.  She stated that from the health service perspective it would involve a large scale transfer of staff under the TUPE arrangements.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing informed the Committee that Cwm Taf is an ambitious health board and she looked forward to the challenges the realignment of the health board boundaries would bring.  The Cabinet Member Social Services and Early Help stated that the emphasis has to be to continue to work in partnership as a region, but this would now be with Cwm Taf.  The Committee questioned the reason for the merger with Cwm Taf.  The Cabinet Member Social Services and Early Help commented that the realignment of the health board was about realigning the region and were not related to the proposals for local government mergers.           

The Committee welcomed the introduction of Local Community Coordinators into Bridgend and were keen to explore the tangible outcomes of from the referrals which had been made.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing informed the Committee that Bridgend currently has 3 Local Community Coordinators and based in the valley communities.  The Maesteg Local Community Coordinator was the first to be established and is based in a GP practice.  The role of the Local Community Coordinator is to support people who experience social isolation and providing support within the community.  The Head of Adult Social Care informed the Committee that the aim of this service is to make it sustainable and help prevent isolation.  She stated that many friendships had been formed as a result of the work of the Local Community Coordinators and there were now examples of where people who had previously experiences isolation now volunteering with other groups.  The Cabinet Member Social Services and Early Help commented that the work of the Local Community Coordinators had been crucial in developing relationships with hard to reach people and had proven very successful. 

The Committee questioned whether Directorate had input into the consultation on subsidised bus services.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing commented that the Directorate did not have a great deal of input into the consultation.   

A member of the Committee commented that Ynysawdre was hoping to become a dementia friendly community and asked whether there were ambitions for all communities to be dementia friendly county wide.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing commented that she would like to see all communities becoming dementia friendly. 

The Committee referred to there being autism friendly communities.  The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing commented that the Council has access to an ASD Coordinator and with the move to Cwm Taf, there would be a need to see what continuing support would be available.  The Head of Adult Social Care stated that consideration would need to be given as to how the Integrated Autism Team would be managed along with Cwm Taf.  

Conclusions                              

Members were pleased to note the improved figures presented in the report for the safe reduction in the number of looked after children, particularly as the decline was against the reported trend in other areas.  Although Members recommend that the Directorate undertake research into what approaches are undertaken in Scotland to adopt best practice in early help and prevention.

The Committee note the lack of reference to ‘smarter use of resources’ within the report in way of technology and recommend that the document should highlight how ICT has assisted with social care processes and reductions to staffing roles.

The Committee questioned the impact of the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014 and the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 on budget in terms of compliance and recommend that the Directorate consider rewording the financial implications within the cover report to reflect the monetary pressures in relation to the aforementioned legislation.

The Committee were concerned that the Social Services Directorate were not invited to act on as a consultee for the Supported Bus Services, especially as reductions to some bus routes could affect residents health and wellbeing due to increased isolation, which could result in a surge in care packages required by Social Services.  Therefore Members recommend that all Directorates are invited to respond to all consultations which would also assist with the One Council approach.

The Committee commend the ongoing work of the Local Community Co-ordinators (LCC’s) in the Borough and are pleased that LCC’s are referenced within the report, but Members recommend that more tangible outcomes are provided in the document as evidence of their efforts, such as tackling loneliness and isolation.

Members were pleased to note that the Directorate will continue to develop dementia friendly communities and that there is a plan in place to make increase the number of dementia friends across the county borough by training staff, elected Members, schools and colleges.  Members recommend that the same emphasis is provided to creating Autism friendly communities.