Agenda item

6.1

The Interim Executive Director, Resources, introduced a progress report of the Director of Business Strategy, Communities that provided an overview of the completed and ongoing management improvement actions in Adult Social Care. The report gave details of a management update regarding the interventions and change processes that had been undertaken throughout the Communities and Resources Portfolios and further actions that were planned. This included the actions taken in respect of Strategic Planning, Leadership and Direction, Financial Control and Responsibility, Partnership and Change Management, Management and Performance Management Information and general cultural issues.

6.2

The Interim Executive Director explained that the Committee had received a number of update reports previously and that there had been a significant number of changes since the original report to the Committee in July 2014 in terms of the landscape and context. It was therefore proposed to return to reporting through the normal audit reporting cycle.

6.3

Officers responded to questions from members of the Committee:-

6.3.1

In respect of actions where there had been no progress and a request for an indication of the type of controls that were in place, the Senior Audit Manager commented that, for example, on the Short Term Intervention Team, a number of the original recommendations had been superseded and the focus was on the current structure for the Team. The Interim Director of Finance indicated that there were 28 audits in the Internal Audit Plan and this demonstrated the amount of Internal Audit efforts in these areas. It was proposed to circulate a summary for members of the Committee on audits being carried out in the 2015/16 Plan in the Communities Portfolio.

6.3.2

The Assistant Director of Finance agreed to inform members of the Committee if all the reassessments had been undertaken.  This was in response to a question on the model of Self Directed Support and personalisation that had been undertaken and reference in the subsequent report on the agenda indicating that whilst the new Resource Allocation System tables to support the setting of personalised budgets was underway, they had not been implemented, pending a full financial assessment.

6.3.3

On the issue raised on how was performance of the service in the delivery of care affected by this process and what had been the impact, the Interim Executive Director indicated that the key point was to improve the balance of the quality of the service as well as the financial position. A significant amount of performance monitoring information had been submitted to various meetings, including the Executive Management Team, to improve how quickly people were assessed. There had been improvements to the way the service was delivered and managed and in the monitoring of the financial position. It was agreed that information would be circulated to members of the Committee on the impact of that process.

6.3.4

On the general cultural issues and whether morale was moving in a positive direction, the Interim Executive Director commented that the employee opinion scores had previously been the lowest in the Communities Portfolio but these were now improving and there was a significant amount of work being undertaken on rebuilding the teams.

6.4

Resolved: That the Committee:-

(a)

agrees that as it was sufficiently appraised of management action in relation to Adult Social Care it would accept the report as the final progress report and to return to business as usual Internal Audit monitoring processes;

(b)

notes the improvement work that had been undertaken to date with regard to Adult Social Care; and

(c)

requests that the following information is circulated to members of the Committee:-

(i)

a summary of audits being carried out in the 2015/16 Internal Audit Plan in the Communities Portfolio (Senior Audit Manager);

(ii)

data on the current performance and impact of the improvements in Adult Social Care (Interim Executive Director/Director of Business Strategy, Communities); and

(iii)

confirmation that all the reassessments in relation to Self Directed Support had been undertaken (Assistant Director of Finance).