Agenda and draft minutes

(a) To approve as an accurate record, and the Chairman to sign the minutes of the meeting of the Housing, Health & Adult Social Care Select Committee held on 19 February 2014.

(b) To monitor the acceptance and implementation of recommendations as set out at Appendix 1.

(c) To note the outstanding actions.

RESOLVED THAT:

The minutes of the meeting held on 19 February 2014 were approved as an accurate record of the proceedings and signed by the Chairman.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Oliver Craig, Peter Tobias and Stephen Cowan and Councillor Marcus Ginn.

Councillor Andrew Brown declared an interest in that he is an elected representative for Hammersmith & Fulham of the Tri-borough Safeguarding Adults Executive Board.

This report provides a progress update on Self-Directed Support.

Ms Bruce introduced the progress update on Self-Directed Support, which included:  the review of Direct Payments (DPs), initiated in the previous year as part of the closure plan for the DP Support Service provided by HAFAD; the Tri-Borough Personalisation Project, currently in progress, through which an improved operating system for DPs was being developed across the three authorities; arrangements for DP support in Hammersmith & Fulham in 2014/15; and changes to the commissioning of day services in Hammersmith & Fulham, linked to the personalisation agenda.

Ms Camp responded to members’ queries in respect of the payment system. DPs were currently made to an individual’s bank account with quarterly returns submitted to the Council. Improvements were being made with the introduction of a pre-loaded card, which would enable Council officers to view individual accounts on line and check how the money was being spent. It would also set alerts on the system which would highlight significant fluctuations in expenditure or other potential causes for concern.

The Government Procurement Service (GPS) was developing a framework agreement for pre-loaded cards, which could be accessed by any public sector body. However, the GPS had not kept to its original timescale and Adult Social Care was currently deciding whether to continue waiting or select the best available for a small scale pilot.

The pre-loaded card would make it possible to review all DP accounts regularly and on a more frequent basis. Currently, there was one dedicated member of staff monitoring nearly 400 H&F DPs. Under the new system, a Tri-borough Finance Team would manage all DP activity. On the basis of current DP numbers, it was likely that there would be two/three dedicated staff.

In respect of people assessed as having the mental capacity to consent to a DP but unable to manage the necessary financial administration, the DP could be Council-Managed. To support this, it was planned to establish an Approved List of day services across Tri-borough. Those people who managed their own DPs did not have to purchase from the Approved List.

Ms Camp stated that an individual with mental capacity to consent to a DP but who wanted someone else to manage the money on their behalf, retained all legal responsibilities for the DP. Members considered that there might be circumstances where the third party was liable, and asked that the legal advice be queried.

Action: Toni Camp

In respect of the in-house DP support, Ms Bruce stated that whilst this was the current preferred option, as part of the medium term planning, all options would be considered. 

Councillor Carlebach commended Action on Disability on the professional way in which it had worked with the Council during the transition to ensure that service users were not impacted.

Mr Naylor commented that potential users were influenced by stories about the monitoring of spending and that there was a need to inform the population and to dispel rumours. Mr Naylor advised officers not to delay in countering bad press.

Ms Camp responded  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63.

The report updates on the arrangements for safeguarding adults in Hammersmith & Fulham.

Ms Bruce introduced the report which set out the arrangements in place for the Council to meet its new statutory responsibilities when the Care Bill becomes law in 2015. The report updated on the improvements in respect of; leadership and good governance of adult safeguarding; the development of best practice in adult safeguarding casework; and the measurement of effectiveness of safeguarding work during 2012/2013. 

The Tri-borough Safeguarding Adults Executive Board, which had had its inaugural meeting on 30 July 2013, had agreed the following five high level outcomes:

People are aware of safeguarding and know what to do if they have a concern or need for help;

People are able to report and are listened to;

Concerns about harm or abuse are properly investigated and people can say what they want to happen;

People feel and are safer as a result of safeguarding action being taken (but being safe on its own is not enough); and

The wider well-being of people was maintained and enhanced as a result of safeguarding activity.

The work of the Board was carried out through three workstreams: Community Engagement, Communications and Prevention; Developing Best Practice; and Measuring Effectiveness.

Peer audits had been introduced in all three boroughs. The findings were shared and the learning and remedial actions agreed and monitored in  a borough based Quality Improvement Group. This had resulted in significant improvements in the number of cases sampled ‘performing well’ or above. The findings from peer and external audit, and the Annual return to the Department of Health had been used by the Tri-borough Learning and Development team to commission Safeguarding and Mental Capacity Act training.

Work was ongoing in respect of improving the quality of care in care and nursing homes through monitoring patterns of care, contracts and reports from families and  the Care Quality Commission (CQC) monthly reports on homes inspected. A Tri-borough protocol was in place, and this had been used to address concerns with the owners and manager of a large nursing home used by residents of all three boroughs. The home had been subject to a CQC recommendation not to place people there in the previous year, but with consistent hard work and commitment to raising standards by all concerned, was now fully CQC compliant and was reporting high levels of satisfaction.  

Ms Baillie highlighted the works with contractors and commissioners to improve quality checks on homes and to provide staff training to improve practice and quality assurance.

In response to a query regarding the involvement of Healthwatch, Ms Banham stated that Paula Murphy, Director of Healthwatch was now a member of the Safeguarding Board.

Members’ queried benchmarking against other London boroughs, deprivation of liberty safeguards and the external and peer audits.

Ms Banham responded that the Department of Health published the Annual Return and that from 2013/2014 the return would include a question on whether or not the safeguarding process had removed or reduced the risk to the person. There was informal benchmarking with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 64.

This report presents performance on key housing indicators.

Mr Barrett introduced the report, which provided KPIs for the period ending February 2014. The principal area of concern was Rent Collection from Council tenants which accounted for three of the targets rated as red and only one of which had started to show an improving trend on a monthly basis.

The main area where performance had dipped compared with the previous report related to transition to the new Repairs and Maintenance Contract with MITIE. The reporting period covered the performance of both the previous repairs and maintenance arrangements and that of MITIE. Prior to new arrangements coming into place performance from the previous incumbents fell back towards the end, which had impacted on the numbers reported: MITIE’s performance had been affected by the number of legacy repairs and other issues they had had to pick up. It was agreed that discussion of MITIE’s performance should be taken with the following item.

Whilst the number of homeless acceptances reflected the on-going pressure on the service as the buoyancy of the housing market in the borough made it difficult for people on low/ modest incomes to access the private sector, the number of families in Bed & Breakfast accommodation had reduced to zero.

RESOLVED THAT:

The report be noted.

This report will follow.

The new arrangements with MITIE incorporated the provision for gas servicing, and therefore an update on gas safety, together with a general Health & Safety update in respect of the Council’s housing stock had been included in the Housing Repairs and Maintenance report.

This report includes the Gas and Health and Safety Update.

The Committee welcomed Matthew Bishop and John D’Souza representing MITIE Property Services Ltd., which had been awarded a 10 year repairs and maintenance contract with effect from 1 November 2013. This had consolidated eight previous contracts into a single borough wide contract and was projected to save the Council approximately £2 million per year when compared to the previous arrangements on a like for like basis. As is common practise with the transition and mobilisation of a major contract a period of approximately six months is allowed from the inception of the contract before ‘hard’ penalties are applied in respect of missed KPIs during the settling in period. The progress report which had been planned for after the initial six month period, but had been brought forward at the Committee’s request.

Mr Kirrage highlighted progress in respect of Health & Safety matters including:

·         the complete managed asbestos register covering Council stock;

·         the ongoing lift modernisation and upgrade programme comprising £25 million of capital investment over five years, which included an innovative lift monitoring, reporting and messaging system. This approach had received recognition from the London Fire Brigade, which had granted a six month amnesty to the Council such that attendance to lift entrapment would not be charged; and

·         the completion of Fire Risk Assessments (FRA) on all Council properties. The Council was working with the Fire Brigade to monitor and all areas of work identified as part of the FRA process planned into the on-going capital works programme.  .

Mr Kirrage confirmed that the new contract included planned preventative maintenance and specifically gutter clearing. Overtime It was proposed to achieve 60% reactive work and 40% planned.

Mr Kirrage highlighted the additional repairs brought about by the recent rain storms and high winds. In February there had been 675 roofing jobs awaiting completion. There were 100 new capital projects as a consequence of continuous repairs, rather than capital investment.

Call volumes had increased threefold (some 1600 calls on day one compared with 500 normally); and in the first four months of the contract, 45,000 calls resulting in 32,000 orders against an historic requirement of 50,000 orders per annum. Of  these 47% had been classified as emergency or urgent.

MITIE had received approximately 1500 jobs which had been held back from the former incumbent contractors as they would not have been completed by the end of the contract. In addition, there had been a high level of communal lighting repairs, as part of the legacy of uncompleted works from the previous repairs contractor.

Telephone answering performance had been severely hampered by the significantly increased volume of calls and difficulties encountered installing MITIE’s Wider Access Network (WAM) Line. The effect of this was that when telephone call handling capacity was reached calls ‘dropped out’, giving callers the impression that the Call Centre had hung up. This had been reflected in the KPIs.

As part of the new contract, a total of 170 staff had been transferred under TUPE regulations from the Council and four  ...  view the full minutes text for item 67.

The Committee is asked to give consideration to its work programme for the municipal year, 2014/2015 as set out in Appendix 1 of the report.

Details of the Key Decisions which are due to be taken by the Cabinet at its next meeting are provided in Appendix 2 in order to enable the Committee to identify those items where it may wish to request reports.

RESOLVED THAT:

The work programme for the first meeting of the new municipal year be approved.

This was the last meeting of the municipal year.