Agenda item

Council Plan Overview Report (CPOR) covering the first quarter of 2022/23 is attached.

Members of the Commission are asked to submit technical or detailed questions in advance of the meeting.

The Deputy Chief Executive at Bracknell Forest Council, Stuart McKellar, introduced the Council Plan Overview Report (CPOR) covering the first quarter of 2022/23 and highlighted that:

• This quarter marked the beginning of Ukranian families arriving in the UK. There were 82 guests who arrived in quarter 1 with another 72 expected. All those families had now arrived but members of the Commission were informed Ukranian families were likely to continue arriving in the UK for some time.
• An Inspection of Children’s Local Authority Services (Ilacs) took place during Quarter 1 and the authority received an Outstanding grade for their services to children in the borough.
• The Council had received an award for Council of the Year at the Energy Efficiency Awards for supporting over 700 households become more fuel efficient. Councillors wished to pass on their thanks to Hazel Hill, Energy Efficiency Officer, for her hard work in this area.
• The Council had moved away from ‘forward’ acronym to three new values: ‘Inclusive, Ambitious, Always Learning’.
• Following a Joint Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Inspection the Council was required to publish a Written Statement of Action (WSOA) to address issues which were identified during the inspection. The WSOA was approved without amendments.

The Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission thanked officers for bringing the quarterly Corporate Performance Overview Report in a timely manner.

Arising from discussion the following points were made:

• Page 44 – 2.2. – The Council had adopted a flexible working policy with staff able to work 1-2 days in the office during the week but, this was not actively being encouraged at this time, due to covid. However, Social Workers were back in the office similar to pre pandemic levels.
• Page 44 – There was provision being made in case Ukranian families presented themselves as homeless and a working arrangement was in place to match those who would like to be a host with those where the hosting arrangement had broken down.
• Page 45 – The Care Quality Commission was working with Bracknell Forest Council to address issues at Heathlands Care Home. Councillors had received a written response specifically on this issue.
• It was agreed a response would be made available following the meeting about whether residents with oil heating would qualify for the £400 energy rebate from the Government. It was also noted the Council had received grant funding for over £1 million to look at how to keep homes warm and, in particularly, make our least inefficient buildings in the borough, more efficient.
• Page 45 - 3.2 – Councillors wished to pass on their thanks to the SEND team for preparing the WSOA.
• Page 51 – 1.1.07 – it was confirmed 25% fulfilment savings from Business Change Team were accurate at this time.
• Page 49 – it was confirmed Bracknell Forest Council were sharing the burden with the supplier. The Council was in continuous discussion with suppliers on how to mitigate inflationary costs.
• It had been expected some bus routes were being withdrawn in September but, the Government had pledged to support current services until the end of March, so that budget pressure had been removed.
• The first quarter end in June showed a potential underspend but Councillors were informed the position was worsening every month due to inflation and other costs impacting on the Council, similarly to household budgets.
• Page 53 – It was noted there was a continuing issue with reporting from the Business Improvement District (BID) since it was established in 2020, which had not been anticipated. Lengthy work arounds had been applied and the Council had engaged a consultant to work with Northgate and the BID to ensure enhancements to that service included improvements to reporting.
• It was agreed a question regarding how residents were consulted on travel in the borough was undertaken would require a response from the relevant Assistant Director and the response circulated to Councillors following the meeting.
• Page 55 – It was confirmed the Family Safeguarding Model had been reviewed a couple of times.
• Page 56 - L139 – It was agreed this indicator should be green, not amber.
• Page 58 – 4.1.06 – It was agreed the indicator on the Children and Young People Plan should be green.
• Page 59 – L404 – It was agreed a response would be circulated following the meeting regarding the number of Children and Young People visits to Everyone Active this quarter 55,000 as it seemed usually low.
• Councillors were glad to see bio-diversity and introduction of food waste into flats was coming to fruition following the scrutiny review into food waste.
• Electric charging points in the borough were grant funded and it was confirmed 32 would go into shopping centres. Bracknell Forest Council were part of a Berkshire wide EV group exploring options for additional electric charging points.
• Page 61 – L418 – It was noted this target was pre the Covid-19 pandemic and needed to be amended.
• Page 63 – L406 – the target seemed low and it was agreed a response to this would be given following the meeting.
• Page 63 - 6.10.08 – It was queried whether there should be an indicator on Afghanistan refugees similar to Ukrainian refugees in the borough. It was agreed a response to this question would be circulated following the meeting.

Question and written answer provided in response regarding Heathlands Care Home:

“It is noted Heathlands Care Home has fallen into Special Measures. What monitoring was in place with the Care Home prior to the inspection? Why was monitoring not sufficient enough to ensure this service did not fall into an inadequate rating? What is the Council’s plan to ensure this provider improves and what lessons are being learned to ensure other providers in the area do not fall into inadequate ratings also?”

What monitoring was in place with the Care Home prior to the inspection?

“Firstly, the home provider was identified through a competitive procurement process. The process involved detailed responses to a range of questions, with an evaluation panel made up of professionals from the council, the health service and carers of people with dementia. The process included a visit to one of the organisation’s homes by members of the commissioning and safeguarding teams. All of the provider’s services had “good” CQC results at the time of applying for the contract.

From the time of opening until the time that the inspection took place the council was in close contact with the service and was monitoring regularly. It was this monitoring and concerns raised by our partners in the NHS that caused us to notify the CQC leading to the inspection. As soon as the council was aware of concerns we instigated a “red flag” stopping further placements and took steps to ensure the welfare of all residents.

Why was monitoring not sufficient enough to ensure this service did not fall into an inadequate rating?

The purpose of our monitoring and support to services is to ensure that people are safe and to help services to improve. Monitoring will not prevent providers from experiencing operational challenges, rather it will ensure that the council and our partners are aware of risks – as it did in this instance. By the time of the inspection the council was working very closely with the organisation to stabilise and support improvement, but unfortunately this was insufficient due to the scale of the challenges that have been explained in the CQC report.

What is the Council’s plan to ensure this provider improves?

The onus is on the provider to ensure that they improve by the time of their re-inspection in October. However the council is working with them closely to ensure that these improvements take place. As an immediate step the provider employed a specialist CQC Compliance agency to replace the home manager and deputy with specialists and to develop and oversee an improvement plan. The AD for Commissioning and Operational ADs are holding twice weekly meetings to oversee progress and plan activity to ensure the provide makes sufficient progress. We are receiving feedback from a wide range of professionals who are engaged with the service including social work, nursing, medication specialists, safeguarding team and commissioning.

What lessons are being learned to ensure other providers in the area do not fall into inadequate ratings also?

As indicated above, the council is not able to ensure that providers do not fall into inadequacy. All social care services are regulated by the Care Quality Commission and have to maintain standards to maintain their registration. The role of the council is to ensure that we have the best possible intelligence about local services and that we are able to responded quickly when providers face problems such as those encountered by Windsar Care.

We are continuing to reflect and learn from the experience of Windsar Care. One thing we are doing is to review the processes and resources that we have in place to respond when we see the first signs of problems. It is a widely know national issue that social care providers are coming under un-precedented challenges currently, and we want to assure ourselves that we are prepared as well as we can be to respond to future incidents of this type.”