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Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: F10, Town Hall, Katharine Street, Croydon CR0 1NX. View directions

Contact: Anoushka Clayton-Walshe
020 8726 6000 x62357  Email: Anoushka.Clayton-Walshe@croydon.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1/20

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillors Avis and Hopley.

2/20

Minutes of the Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 95 KB

To approve the minutes of the meetings held on 26 June 2019 and 6 November 2019 as an accurate record.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 26 June 2019 and 6 November 2019 were agreed as an accurate record.

3/20

Disclosure of Interests

In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct and the statutory provisions of the Localism Act, Members and co-opted Members of the Council are reminded that it is a requirement to register disclosable pecuniary interests (DPIs) and gifts and hospitality to the value of which exceeds £50 or multiple gifts and/or instances of hospitality with a cumulative value of £50 or more when received from a single donor within a rolling twelve month period. In addition, Members and co-opted Members are reminded that unless their disclosable pecuniary interest is registered on the register of interests or is the subject of a pending notification to the Monitoring Officer, they are required to disclose those disclosable pecuniary interests at the meeting. This should be done by completing the Disclosure of Interest form and handing it to the Democratic Services representative at the start of the meeting. The Chair will then invite Members to make their disclosure orally at the commencement of Agenda item 3. Completed disclosure forms will be provided to the Monitoring Officer for inclusion on the Register of Members’ Interests.

Minutes:

There were none.

4/20

Urgent Business (if any)

To receive notice of any business not on the agenda which in the opinion of the Chair, by reason of special circumstances, be considered as a matter of urgency.

Minutes:

There were no items of urgent business.

5/20

Update on the proposed London ADASS - Safeguarding Peer Review pdf icon PDF 88 KB

Minutes:

The Head of Safeguarding & Quality Assurance introduced the report that detailed how the Executive Director Health Wellbeing and Adults was commissioning a Peer Review which focussed on Adult Safeguarding for 2020. This would be led by the London branch of Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and would comprise of a six reviewers, including: a Review Leader (DASS), Safeguarding Lead, Performance Lead, Finance Lead, Principle Social Working and a Review Co-ordinator.

 

To provide a background, 10 years ago Adult Social Care in Croydon was inspected by the Quality Care Commission (CQC). As to improve, Local Authorities (LA) across London agreed to peer review each other going forward to maintain standards. The last Peer Review in Croydon was in 2018 and focussed on ‘Use of Resources’, having been reported to the Panel, and areas for improvement were identified.

 

The Adult Safeguarding Peer Review programme would be an intense 3 day period involving interviews, focus groups, visits and would conclude to provide feedback to the services. Following the review, an action plan would be developed using the feedback and recommendations to implement service changes.

 

Croydon had identified issues of self-neglect, communication challenges, missed opportunities of support and difficulties in how to manage residents who were resistant to intervention. To tackle these, Croydon must look beyond internal discussion and seek external input and advice, which was true of other boroughs to find success through engagement. The areas of review focus should be identified early in the process to frame the assessment.

 

The Head of Innovation and Change stated that a self-assessment programme would evaluate Croydon’s strengths and weaknesses, enabling an action plan to be developed and acted on in the lead up to the review itself. The self-assessment was written against clear criteria provided by London ADASS, and informs key lines of the enquiry during the review.

 

In response to a Panel Member asking how the peer group membership would be balanced and how often a review would take place, the Head of Safeguarding & Quality Assurance stated that the group would be appointed from counterpart leads in other boroughs that were regionally focussed and a review would take place every 2-3 years.

 

Panel Members expressed that in relation to the themes of focus, there should be a drive to focus on residents who ‘fall through the net’ of care and how to better capture and right support to them before self-neglect and mental capacity issues set in. It was understood that it could be difficult engaging with those people who were isolated from the system and to help them choose support over isolation. The Head of Safeguarding & Quality Assurance replied that it was difficult for social workers to deal with those challenging cases but they performed resiliently; there were discussions with social workers about their impressive work and at a future Panel they could share their experiences.

 

In response to a Panel Member referring to 3.5 of the report and asking whether the independent expert advice team came from the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5/20

6/20

Update on the Adults Annual Plan pdf icon PDF 82 KB

Minutes:

The Director of Operations introduced an overview of the Adult Social Care Plan 2020. The main area of focus included service integration with health and social care to ensure continued locality work through communities, district nurses and general practitioners. Community lead support would follow by ensuring staff were well trained cross-departmentally and all stakeholders were knowledgeable of happenings around the community to enable meaningful participation of residents and a greater understanding on how different areas function. The council would use the service’s existing assets and estates and to make sure the basics of care had strong foundations.

 

The new social care record system (Liquid Logic) would be implemented, moving away from the current AIS system, it will be live from September 2020. The system will enhance the quality of data stored and enable greater ease of record sharing.

 

The insourcing of care and support in the 6 extra care units was completed on 4 January 2020. The service is currently rated as good by the Care Quality Commission, the ambition is to enable it to become ‘Outstanding’, whilst spending funds wisely adhering to a managed budget.

 

Panel Members explained that services should be bespoke for different communities because there were different needs across the borough. The needs of residents should also be aided by family community led support; the best approach to capture the people who suffered from isolation routed issues would be from those closer to the person in need.

 

The Director of Operations explained that they had established talking points with users and they would meet at locations of their choice, as opposed to Bernard Wetherill House, such as libraries of lunch clubs. These meetings would be centred on preventative and outreach work with the community and voluntary sector.

 

In response to a Panel Member raising the ongoing locality issues where services missed deprived or periphery areas and asking how they would find a solution, the Director of Operations assured that a meeting would be arranged between the leading officer for that operation and panel members to discuss how each area in the borough would be affected.

 

The Head of Innovation and Change told the Panel that children’s services had a family safeguarding project, which focussed their attention on not only services relating directly to children, but also a family approach to support immediate family members who could be suffering issues that could impede their caregiving such as substance abuse of domestic violence. An initiative would pilot combining parts of children’s and adult’s services for a more holistic approach. The Head of Safeguarding & Quality Assurance stated that studies had suggested many parents and carers who children’s services worked with had experienced complex issues, like those listed above; child protection work needed additional knowledge and expertise to improve situations.

 

Panel Members asked for an overview on the status of pre-teen and teen mental health, self-harm, problems arising from social media and issues relating to county lines. The Head of Safeguarding & Quality Assurance said that the Director Violence Reduction  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6/20

7/20

Exclusion of the Press and Public

The following motion is to be moved and seconded where it is proposed to exclude the press and public from the remainder of a meeting:

 

“That, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information falling within those paragraphs indicated in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended.”

Minutes:

The following motion was moved by Councillor Clouder and seconded by Councillor Bird to exclude the press and public:

 

“That, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information falling within those paragraphs indicated in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended.”

 

The motion was put and it was agreed by the Committee to exclude the press and public for the remainder of the meeting.

8/20

Minutes of the Previous Meeting

To approve the Part B minutes of the meetings held on 26 June 2019 and 6 November 2019 as an accurate record.

Minutes:

The Part B minutes of the meeting held on 26 June 2019 and 6 November 2019 were agreed as an accurate record.