Agenda and minutes

www.swansea.gov.uk/disclosuresofinterests

In accordance with the provisions of the Code of Conduct adopted by the City and County of Swansea the following interests were declared:

Councillors R Fogarty and M H Jones declared a personal interest in Minute Item 4 – Coproduction Report.

None.

Questions can be submitted in writing to Scrutiny scrutiny@swansea.gov.uk up until noon on the working day prior to the meeting. Written questions take precedence. Public may attend and ask questions in person if time allows. Questions must relate to items on the open part of the agenda and will be dealt with in a 10 minute period.

No public questions were submitted.

Invited to attend:

Cllr Hayley Gwilliam – Cabinet Member for Community

Lee Wenham – Head of Communications and Marketing

Rhian Millar – Consultation Coordinator

Suzy Richards – Sustainable Policy Officer

The Cabinet Member and relevant officers attended to give an overview of their briefing and to answer questions from group members. The following items were discussed:

• The Council Corporate Coproduction Strategy is progressing with support from CoPro Lab Wales, a not for profit organisation which helps public services improve outcomes for people through coproduction and involvement.
• With funding from the Economic Recovery Fund, support from CoPro Lab Wales has been procured for 12 months starting in October 2022. They will carry out a review of current coproduction, stakeholder mapping and help to identify Coproduction Champions in directorates across the Council.
• Coproduction Champions will be trained to provide support to colleagues within their directorates and identify coproduction opportunities rather than a centralised approach.
• CoPro Lab Wales will produce a tool kit and webpage with advice and information for the Council officers and members to use as well as training and ongoing advice and support.
• The developed toolkit will include framing discussions, asking the right questions, facilitating meetings, workshops, what to do with information gathered and identifying what is in scope within the frame of limited resources.
• CoPro Lab Wales will support a number of pilot projects which are aligned with the transformation plan and the 12 projects within that plan. These will be identified as quick wins and can give examples of how coproduction can be widened within the Council.
• An insight report will be published at the end of March 2023 as well as a training needs analysis. This will help to inform what the tools and training requirements are.
• A stakeholder matrix is currently being developed, this cross references stakeholders by areas like protected characteristics and interests. The stakeholder matrix will be bespoke to the needs of the Council in addition to a wealth of existing tools.
• Consultation is an important part of coproduction and this is developed based on the individual needs of each consultation.
• In response to Social Services Wellbeing Act 2014, significant progress on the coproduction strategy has been gained in this area.
• Social Services have produced an introduction to coproduction training package for all their officers as well as a handbook which is almost complete.
• The Swansea coproduction network is one of the main ways used to reach people in addition to other networks. Networks require work to sustain and support.
• The Social Services coproduction strategy also covers governance, strategic commissioning and service delivery so that all areas within social services will have a coproductive approach.
• Within Social Services people have taken part in procurement panels, designing services, policy development, service monitoring, review of individual support plans and recruitment.
• Most significant change, theory of change, asset based community development, community organising, beyond sticky notes and rich pictures, are all coproduction tools currently used in Social Services.
• Work is still to be done around using accessible language rather than jargon. Social Services is clearer around understanding scope and parameters, what can and can’t be offered and what is within officers’ power to offer.
• Social Services has a Remuneration Policy to demonstrate the commitment required in regards to volunteers time and effort.
• A feedback report will be produced in October 2023 at the end of the 12 month contact with CoPro Lab Wales.

Councillors are asked to discuss conclusions arising from this session for inclusion in the Convener’s letter to the Cabinet Member, or if appropriate, a report to Cabinet:

a. What do you want to say about this issue to the Cabinet Member (what are your conclusions arising from this session?)

b. Do you have any recommendations for the Cabinet Member arising from this session?

c. Are there any further issues you wish to highlight to the Scrutiny Programme Committee arising from this session?

Members discussed their conclusions. The following main issues were discussed:

• There are some good examples of coproduction around Swansea in and outside the Council.
• Coproduction needs to encourage hearing from those seldom listened to. Networks will not pick up everyone’s voice.
• Safeguarding is important in coproduction.
• The training offer will apply to members and will include training on involvement where coproduction is not appropriate.
• Coproductive practice needs to be embedded early even before services are designed where appropriate.
• Coproduction needs to be introduced “pre cradle” before services have been scoped for it to have the most value to support a proactive approach.
• People need to feel they are totally equal around the table with an equal share of power.

Working Group Members then discussed progress and made the following conclusions and recommendations:

1. Overall the Working Group was encouraged by the approach the Council are taking to coproduction.
2. Although the Coproduction Champions model can be harder to achieve than a centralised coproduction provision it will be more successful in embedding coproduction across departments.
3. The Working Group felt the slow and steady approach will work well while learning from the work carried out by Social Services.
4. Where possible coproduction should be a proactive approach with the aim of identifying opportunities for coproduction before services are planned.
5. The Working Group was pleased to hear about the bespoke stakeholder matrix that will be developed, however it encourages officers where possible to utilise existing tools that are already available.
6. It is important to embed coproduction at all levels therefore the Working Group was pleased there is backing from the Corporate Management Team and Cabinet.
7. The Working Group requests that CoPro Lab Wales develop training on involvement as well as coproduction to educate officers and members on areas where coproduction is not achievable but levels of involvement are.
8. The Working Group suggests using the Coproduction Champions to share and promote case studies and the long term impacts of coproduction to demonstrate success and encourage participation from officers.
9. The Working Group will recommend to the Scrutiny Programme Committee to revisit this topic after October 2023 when the report has come out and next steps are planned.

Following on from this meeting:

A letter will be written from the Convener of the Working Group to the Cabinet Member, summarising the discussion and outlining the Working Group’s conclusions and recommendations.