Agenda and minutes

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In accordance with the Code of Conduct adopted by the City & County of Swansea, no interests were declared.

To approve & sign the Minutes of the previous meeting(s) as a correct record.

Resolved that the Minutes of the People Policy Development Committee held on 19 February 2020 and 18 March 2020 be approved and signed as a correct record.

Jane Whitmore, Partnership and Commissioning Manager provided a verbal update as follows:

 

The bid to the Foundational Economy Challenge Fund, which is a Welsh Government fund aimed at supporting innovative and alternative approaches to addressing problems or realising potential in the foundational economy had been successful. 

 

The bid was to recruit an agent of change resource to support the creation of cooperatives or social/micro enterprises; in relation to both the purchasing AND the provision of care and support in the Gower and other rural areas of Swansea.

 

This proposal would change the nature of care and support delivery at a local level. It would put people who have care and support needs in control of the design and delivery of their care and connect them directly with locally based organisations who could provide a local, flexible and responsive service.

 

By supporting the development of a skilled workforce and supporting workers to create their own employment arrangements, we believe this will lead to more sustainable jobs which offer care workers improved conditions and control over their day to day workload and conditions of employment.

 

It was hoped to create a genuinely different approach to the commissioning of care for people with low level needs in the community.

 

She went on to remind Members of the workshop held with the People Policy Development Committee on 15 January 2020 to explore our approach and to share learning from other Local Authorities who had attempted similar approaches.

 

She described the approach, building on Local Area Coordination and Our Neighbourhood Approach; to recruit a Community Enterprise Officer to work within communities to find people who were interested in entering the social care workforce; providing:

 

•              Advice

•              Guidance

•              Specialist Signposting (e.g. Business Wales, Wales Cooperative Centre)

•              Small start-up grants

•              Training

•              Support to overcome barriers

 

It would also involve recruiting a worker to support people who receive care to pool their resources in order to cooperate together in meeting their shared needs.

 

Somerset County Council had pursued a similar model and the workshop covered the approach they had taken and the outcomes of the approach.

 

Somerset had adopted a Community Catalyst to build local capacity to care and increase the take up of direct payments to support people to purchase their own care.

 

The outcomes Somerset reported were: - Older people were well-supported at home by people from their Neighbourhood.   Support was co-designed. Creative people on both sides of the care equation were finding ways to do things differently.

 

The Policy Development Committee Workshop session also highlighted risks and challenges with the development of micro enterprise providers which have been taken into account so that we could address these as pilot developed.

 

Lisa Banks, Contract & Planning Unit Planning Officer in the Commissioning Hub outlined the current status:

 

The Policy Development Committee workshop highlighted opportunities that could be realised through the project, which again had been taken into consideration and captured.

 

A Partnership Agreement and service specifications have been agreed between the Local Authority and our two key partners; Wales Cooperative Centre and Swansea Council for Voluntary Service.

 

She stated that we had been ready to recruit and commence the project at the end of February/early March, however Covid 19 led us to postponing the project to deal with the emergency response.

 

However, an interim agreement was developed with one of our partners to undertake remote preliminary work to ensure the project kept some momentum. The focus of this work was to prepare the ground for when we could re-start the project.

 

Welsh Government had indicated the project still needs to be delivered on time (by 31 March 2021) and have established Communities of Practice across similar projects and an Expert Procurement panel to support delivery within the timescale.

 

Welsh Government were particularly interested in how projects could build on the Covid 19 response which has highlighted the importance of the Foundational Economy and ‘key workers’ and also the ability of communities to come together to meet the needs of its more vulnerable members.

 

Currently in the process of revising the project to build on the opportunities presented by Covid 19 and to mitigate the reduced timescale; including:

 

·                     Focusing on two areas; Gower and Clydach.

 

·                    Reducing the original outcomes and increase emphasis on the evaluation of learning outcomes

 

·                    Being open minded about the types of support we look to develop          and be guided by current demand in the communities we are             working in; learning from Covid 19 responses.

 

·                     Recruitment to three posts had commenced and one person was    already in post.

https://wales.coop/careers/currentvacancies/

 

https://www.scvs.org.uk/scvs-microenterprise-job-july20

 

Community engagement had commenced in Clydach and Gower utilising the networks and connections that had emerged during the crisis.

 

She informed the Committee of interest from an individual in Gower who would like to establish a micro enterprise.  We would work flexibly to cover Gower using the already established post until the Gower post was recruited to.

 

Work has been ongoing with colleagues in Domiciliary Care to understand the current levels of demand which had shifted during Covid 19 and this might impact on our approach and focus.

 

Engagement with other Local Authorities had commenced to share learning and work together on blocks to progress.

 

The Project Board re-convened early July and the project was now active again.

 

Dave Howes, Director of Social Services commented that Covid 19 had affected everything.  Communities would have to learn to live with Covid 19 for at least the next 12-18 months, therefore our focus would be to develop our recovery / adaptation plans and revisit our priorities.  This piece of work should assist with that process.

 

It was noted that all the different wards in Swansea, those with or without Community Councils had all responded to the pandemic with many volunteers providing assistance to the Local Area Co-ordinators, Community services, foodbanks, etc.

 

The Chair thanked the officers for the update and for all of their work with the scheme and the Committee looked forward to receiving updates on the progress of the work in due course.

 

Resolved that the update be noted.

Dave Howes, Director of Social Services attended to provide a verbal update.  He conveyed his apologies on behalf of Chris Francis, the lead officer, whose workload had been re-prioritised due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

 

He stated that the Committee had received a comprehensive update report at their last meeting in February 2020 in relation to how this piece of work could be progressed and the next steps were planned to be around implementation planning.  Unfortunately, due to the pandemic no further work had progressed in relation to this piece of work.

 

However, he stated that the improvements were still required to be part of our recovery and adaptive planning but it might have implications on the timing and nature of the changes required.

 

He outlined the regional context and whilst work had been ongoing locally, it would not be practical to have separate work streams looking at related areas of practice.

 

Therefore, his suggestion to the Committee and to form part of recovery and adaptive/modification planning going forward, would be to link this piece of work with the regional work currently being undertaken. The value being that we were automatically linked in with the Health Board and health services and if we can make this a priority regionally it would cut through some of the barriers encountered locally.  He had also discussed this with Education colleagues who were linked to some of the regional work, in particular the Children’s programme. 

 

By following the regional pathway, this would ensure that none of the work undertaken by the officers and Committee to date would be wasted. 

 

He confirmed that there was local commitment from Education colleagues to join the regional work stream.  However, if for any reason this subject dropped down the regional list of priorities, then he would bring this matter back into local arrangements.

 

There was a discussion on a potential second wave of Covid 19 and whether we could do things in an improved / different way in order to be more prepared.

 

The Chair thanked Mr Howes and all of his Social Services staff, all staff in fact, together with the Democratic Services staff for all the fantastic work undertaken during the pandemic.

 

The Chair then queried whether a report could be drafted to Cabinet to outline the work to date.  The Director of Social Services suggested that Simon Jones, Social Services Strategy and Performance Improvement Officer work with the Chair to draft a summary report on all the work of the Committee to date. 

 

Resolved that:

 

1)            The update be noted;

2)            The Committee note that the work on Transition for Children and Young People with a Disability progress on a regional basis;

3)                  A report be drafted to Cabinet outlining the work of the People Policy Development Committee during the Municipal year 2019-2020.

The Chair presented the Work Plan for 2019-2020. 

 

It was noted that due to the Covid 19 pandemic the Committee was likely to receive a larger piece of work to focus on in terms of recovery and planning and further information should be received by the next meeting in September.

 

Resolved that the Work Plan be noted.