Agenda and minutes

1.1  None.

2.1  As per the agenda.

3.1  None.

4.1  The minutes of the meeting held on 8^th December 2014 were agreed.

4.2  Matters arising

4.2.1  Members referred to the discussion item related to the Corporate Committee and concluded this matter was still outstanding and should be reviewed following informal discussions outside the meeting.

5.1  The Chair outlined the aims of the Governance & Resources Scrutiny Commission review to the service provider representatives at the meeting.  The service providers in attendance presented information about the current service provision, client group and service budget / spend for the long term unemployed in Hackney

5.2  The Chair explained this information would be useful to the commission when they engage with service users to understand the service user journey.

5.3  Presentations were from:

·  London Borough of Hackney Adult Social Care - Rob Blackstone, Assistant Director Adult Social Care and Genette Laws, Assistant Director Commissioning.

·  LBH Public Health - Gareth Wall, Public Health Manager

·  Job Centre Plus - Stephen Hanshaw, Borough Relationship Manager (Hackney) and Amina Begum, DWP Relationship Manager for the borough of Tower Hamlets

·  Ways into Work Team - Andrew Monk, Programme Manager.

5.4  Information about the services commissioned and provided by Adult Social Care, Public Health and East London Foundation trust was presented as a joint presentation by LBH AD Commissioning and an information paper was circulate to Members of the Commission on 16^th January 2015.

5.4.1  The key points from the LBH Adult Social Care, Public Health and East London NHS Foundation Trust presentation were:

·  Adult social care and public health are in the same directorate within the Council

·  London Borough Hackney (LBH) has two employment support services paid for by Adult Social Care

o  Lee House - an employment and training service for people with mental health issues

o  Hackney Recruitment Partnership (also known as Hackney One Team) - supports people with learning disabilities. 

·  The Lee House provision is currently a Section 31 agreement between Adult Social Care and East London Foundation Mental Health Trust ELFMHT).

·  A value for money review of Adult Social Care supported employment services was completed in June 2014. The aim of the review was to assess current service models, outcomes for service users and effectiveness of services. 

·  The review highlighted the need for the service to be commissioned with the following key features:

o  To work with Ways into Work and other services who are delivering employment support

o  To offer a more specialist targeted service for residents who are long term unemployed regardless of the type of disability they may have

o  A supported employment pathway is designed that builds on the success of other services rather than trying to replicate it

o  Achieve efficiency savings and therefore improve value for money

·  The next steps following this review is to draft a specification, this will be completed in consultation with service users

·  Spend on this service provision is approximately £800,000 per annum

·  This service provision is not limited to being an in house provision.  A number of VCS organisation service providers are commissioned.  This includes a new commissioning model being implemented in the form of their Integrated Mental Health Network (IMHN).  The network of providers is led by City and Hackney Mind.

5.5  The key points from the Ways into Work Team presentation were:

·  Ways into Work  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.1  The Chair referred to the Executive response from LBH to the Commission’s ICT Review.  The Commission was asked to note the response and discuss if they wish to keep the recommendations under review.

6.2  Discussion, Comments and Queries

a)  Members commented on the role of ICT in an organisation being critical to services being able to evolve.  Members enquired if LBH had developed a 5 year plan and if the organisation had a strategy for ICT provision that would help them to lead the way.

The Corporate Director Finance and Resources from LBH pointed out many organisations changing their IT system implement incremental changes.  For the migration of 4,500 staff to myoffice 2013 this was completed in one go with success and did not cause any business failures.  He explained when the ICT support service moved back in-house the previous providers did not provide the Council with data on the type of calls the helpdesk received.  The move to myoffice and taking the service back in-house has highlighted a real skills gap among staff in relation to using IT. 

The Corporate Director Finance and Resources noted the next phase of the ICT system development was upgrading Councillors and he acknowledged that Councillors interaction with IT required improvement.  He informed the commission Councillors would be invited to participate in the project developing the IT system for Councillors.

b)  Members commented to help reduce costs and improve services a good ICT strategy was important. 

c)  Members requested for an update on the Council’s ICT strategy and its implementation.

d)  Members commented in relation to their review exploring joint commissioning.  This would require a strong ICT system that could work across the whole service sector.  Members appreciated implementing a large ICT system was risky but to reduce risk consideration should be given to incremental implementation.  In response it was pointed out for the ICT to support service improvement services needed to have a clear vision for their future service provision.

e)  Members wanted assurance that all the different ICT updates linked into the Council’s overarching strategy.  Although the organisation has a number of different services, it was important they could interact with each other.  Members acknowledged this needed to start with services having clarity about their service needs. 

7.1  The Chair welcomed Ian Williams, Corporate Director Finance and Resources from LBH, he presented information about the financial settlement for 2015/16 and the impact of this on the Council’s budget for 2015/16.  Also in attendance was the Councillor Geoff Taylor, Cabinet Member for Finance.

7.1.1  The presentation outlined:

·  The opportunities and challenges in relation to economic and political landscape

·  Local Government Settlement

·  Hackney’s budget 2015/16.

7.1.2  The main points of the presentation were:

·  Markets are more concerned with the outcome of the election and the impact this would have on austerity (the pace) and EU Membership

·  A graph showed the UK economy was closely aligned to France and Spain and it was highlighted both of those economies were quite fragile; which may be an indication the UK economy is not as stabled as believed

·  All the major political parties have relatively small differences between them in relation to austerity plans

·  The level of wage growth and rises has been low.  Raising the lower level income tax threshold results in lower tax yields and this will have a long term impact for the economy

·  House prices saw demand and supply fall and the trend for London is starting to turn

·  It is not just oil prices pushing down inflation.  The UK runs a trade deficit in oil as a % of GDP, so falling oil prices are not good for the UK

·  The UK economy has started to perform stronger than the Eurozone

·  The Bank of England monetary policy committee is maintaining its current stance

·  Based on the investment markets the pension fund value has fluctuated greatly and Hackney’s currently stands at 72%

·  UK income receipts are struck at 37-38% of GDP

·  Cutting public expenditure is a small part of reducing the deficit.  There needs to be sustainable strategy to managing the UK debt long term

·  UK borrowing is up and spend on protected services is up.  Whereas spend on unprotected services such as local government, police, home office and capital investment has been cut sharply

·  UK debt is £1.5 tr and rising.  The low inflation levels mean the value of debit is not being eroded

·  From the beginning of the austerity measures local government expenditure has remained the same

·  The deficit of GDP is £20 billion and is expected to fall to £12.6 million by 2019/20

·  In 2009/10 the spend per person was £3020 this will fall to £1219 per person in 2019/20

·  OBR highlighted local government was 4% of UK GDP in 2009/10 and this is predicted to fall to 2% by 2019/20

·  There is substantial variation in the level of cuts within similar types of local authorities.  The range in cuts for London Boroughs has been 15-35% and not the reported reduction of 6.4% or less

·  Funding for local government has been cut by 37% which translates into 25% reduction in spending power

·  Local authorities have held reserves to off set incidents they cannot predict.  In the current climate of uncertainty in relation to public sector finances  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

8.1  The work programme for the Commission on pages 43-50 of the agenda was noted for information. 

8.2  Members enquired if the notes from the site visit would be circulated to Commission Members who were unable to attend.  The Chair confirmed they would be.

8.3  Members referred to the North London Waste Authority discussion item in February and requested for the Overview and Scrutiny Officer to ensure paper were provided in advance for this item; because the Members of the Commission have no prior knowledge of the subject area or the joint borough service provision.

8.4  The Cabinet Member for Finance from LBH explained the NLWA was making changes to the service, levy and pricing and the Executive wanted to provide an update on the proposed changes and role of the Council in this joint borough partnership.

8.5  Members discussed having a panel of experts for the G&R meeting in March to hear about good examples of joint commissioning across a service sector.

9.1  None.