Agenda item

A workshop for Members to discuss proposed key workstreams including:

1.    Integrated Care System (ICS)

2.    Bracknell Forest Council Housing Strategy Development

Members are asked to consider the following questions specifically in relation to development of the Housing Strategy Development:

-       What is your vision for housing in Bracknell Forest?

-       What top three things should the revised Housing Strategy focus upon?

-       What are the key challenges for housing in Bracknell Forest?

The outputs from which will inform the development of the Overview and Scrutiny work programme.

The Chairman introduced the workshop and outlined that the objective of the workshop was to generate a list of topics for scrutiny.  The list of topics would be submitted to the Overview and Scrutiny Commission for consideration and would contribute to the development of the Panel’s work programme for the coming months and years.

As a result of discussions between the Chairman, Vice Chairman, Executive Member for Adult Services, Health and Housing, Executive Director: People and departmental Associate Directors, 2 workstreams for scrutiny’s contribution had been identified:

·        The Integrated Care System (ICS)

·        Development of the Housing Strategy for Bracknell Forest

The Chairman invited everyone present at the meeting, where appropriate, to take part in and contribute to the workshop so that a range of ideas, views and opinions could be captured.

Councillor Dale Birch, Executive Member for Adult Services, Health and Housing provided the workshop with a brief overview of the ICS.  He advised the workshop that:

·        The ICS footprint covered East Berkshire, Northants, Surrey Heath and South Buckinghamshire and covered a population of approximately 750,000 people.

·        The ICS was created via the National Health Service (NHS) as an entity but had no legislation in support of it yet, but that legislation was planned and was going out to consultation to formally describe how the ICS would be used across the footprint in the future.

·        The funding of the ICS was designed to save the NHS £20 billion. Part of the rationale was to share health and social care and join them up sharing them with the partners in the system. 

·        As a Local Authority we needed to make sure our plans showed due regard to NHS partner plans and vice versa. It was also necessary to ensure that the messages coming out of the NHS colleagues and partners were put into plain language and delivered to residents in a clear and understandable way.

Melanie O’Rourke, Assistant Director Adult Social Care, introduced the Frimley System ICS-Bracknell Forest Council Focus, Plan on a Page to the workshop and explained that it:

·        Provided the workshop with the Bracknell perspective. 

·        The left hand column were the priorities set by the ICS that related to the NHS 5 year plan.  The NHS 10 year plan had been introduced and the 5 year plan would be refreshed but was anticipated to be very similar.

·        The middle column described what it meant to Bracknell.

·        The right hand column described the golden thread and the planned activity that drew what Bracknell was doing back to the ICS priorities.

Further detail was provided that related to each of the ICS priority areas for Bracknell Forest’s activity:

·        Priority 1.  Cynthia Folarin, Consultant Public Health, was involved in many of the projects as many of them were public health related.  The list of activities in the middle column described what Bracknell Forest were doing to deliver the priority 1 objective of the ICS.

·        Priority 4.  Bracknell Forest will be required to interact with the new primary care networks (PCNs) to contribute to this objective.

·        Priority 5.  Further details were available to support reducing health inequalities which sat with Public health.  The facts around prevalence could be shared in the workshops if required.

There were 4 groups of 6 people in the workshop.

Officers, Members and members of the public were distributed between the groups evenly.

The groups were provided with hard copies of:

·        The Council Plan 2015-2019 Strategic Themes

·        Frimley System ICS-Bracknell Forest Council Focus Plan on a Page

The Chairman asked them to consider the following questions that related to the ICS workstream and how it interacted/intersected with the residents of Bracknell Forest and complete a weighted decision matrix for each question.

Question 1.  What are Members’ key local priorities against the Plan on a Page?

Question 2.  Bearing in mind their own Ward, which issues/areas that affect each Councillor’s residents match the Plan on a Page?

The results of the discussions and the associated weightings from each workshop table were then fed back and input live to a master decision matrix so that the whole workshop could see the topic suggestions and the relative scores.

Councillor Dale Birch, Executive Member for Adult Services, Health and Housing provided the workshop with a brief overview of the development of a housing strategy for Bracknell forest.  He advised the workshop that:

·        Scrutiny had been invited to take part in the development of the housing strategy at the earliest stage.

·        He hoped some of the myths surrounding the topic of housing would be busted.  For example, the idea that if you build more affordable homes you can eliminate homelessness entirely.  This was not the case as homelessness is complex and multi-faceted.

·        The information provided again was set in the council context. 

·        A Local Authority had to work to within a statutory framework in meeting duties to homeless households and those in housing need. 

·        There was a need to understand what types of dwellings/housing were needed in the future so a lot of data will need to be gathered to understand future housing needs including for affordable and specialist housing.

·         Planning has a role in supporting the delivery of new homes as detailed in the ‘Housing in Bracknell on a page’ sheet circulated in advance. Max Baker, Head of Planning was in attendance at the workshop because of that role.

·        Another overlap was with public health.  One of the key determinants of health was housing so it was necessary to have a strategy that reflected the makeup and needs of the local population.

·        The Housing Roles and Responsibilities on page 19 of the agenda summarised the key areas of local housing roles and responsibilities within Bracknell Forest that made up ‘Housing’ within the Borough.

Sarah Gee, Assistant Director Early Help and Communities provided the workshop with a brief presentation in addition to the agenda papers.  In addition to the detail on the slides the workshop were advised that:

·        Anna Smy was in attendance at the workshop representing the Public Protection Partnership (PPP) the Council’s shared service with West Berkshire, Wokingham and Bracknell. Anna had provided a handout summarising  PPP’s Housing priorities and this was provided in hard copy for the workshop on their tables.

·        Ellie Eghtedar, Interim Head of Housing and Sharon Warner, Head of Welfare and Housing were also in attendance at the workshop to provide input.

·        Legislation enacted in April 2018 required the Local Authority (LA) to be proactive in preventing and relieving homelessness and to intervene as early as possible.

·        Housing associations which are non-profit housing providers, are regulated by the state.  The LA had no regulatory role or control over them but did try to work with them in partnership.  Many housing associations now manage and develop a range of tenures including private market rented, shared ownership, intermediate rents and other products as well as social rent housing. 

·        In 2008 Bracknell Forest Council had transferred its housing stock to a registered provider in Bracknell now called Silva homes. 

·        Temporary or emergency accommodation owned by the Council and it’s housing company (Downshire Homes) provided around 160 homes for homeless households whilst their needs were assessed and also shared housing for people with learning disabilities. 

·        The private rental sector (PRS) has an important role in meeting local housing needs, as turnover in existing stock and the supply of new affordable housing is not sufficient to meet all of the needs presenting.  The PRS has doubled in the last decade and 20% of households now live in a privately rented property – this included a growing number of families.

Following Sarah’s presentation, the Chairman reconvened the workshop.

The groups were provided with hard copies of:

·        Housing in Bracknell – An Overview July 2019 as presented by Sarah Gee at the meeting

·        PPP Priority – Housing, Plan on a Page as brought to the meeting by Anna Smy

The Chairman asked the groups to consider what their vision for housing in Bracknell Forest might be.  This was captured as an open qualitative response. 

The groups were also asked to consider the following questions that related to the Development of the Housing Strategy for Bracknell Forest workstream and complete a weighted decision matrix for each question.

·        Question 3.  What top three things should the revised Housing Strategy focus upon?

·        Question 4.  What are the key challenges for housing in Bracknell Forest?

Those present at the workshop were able to answer question 3 and feedback. 

The results of the discussions and the associated weightings from each workshop table were then fed back and input live to a master decision matrix so that the whole workshop could see the topic suggestions and the relative scores.

The Chairman partially concluded the workshop by briefly talking through the raw data that had been collected live on the screens and asked if anyone would like to stay to answer question 4. 

In answering question 4, the workshop was reduced to two groups as a result of time pressures.

The Chairman thanked everyone for their input.

Action:  Councillor Tullett/Councillor Mattick

Following the workshop:

·        The collated vision statements for housing in Bracknell Forest will be provided to Sarah Gee, Assistant Director Early Help and Communities and Councillor Dale Birch, Executive Member for Adult Services, Health and Housing for consideration during the development of the Housing Strategy

·        The weighted decision matrices will be consolidated to form a ranked topic suggestion list and will be submitted to the Overview and Scrutiny Commission to form the basis of suggested topics to form the Adult Social Care, Health and Housing Overview and Scrutiny work programme for the coming months and years.

·        The suggested topics that are included in the final work programme commissioned by the Overview and Scrutiny Commission will be dealt with separately as task and finish groups.

·        Separately and to be discussed outside of the workshop, it was suggested that Members who had a particular interest in a subject that had been raised at the workshop could take a watching brief on that topic, scanning the external environment to identify any matters that might require scrutiny and bringing those suggestions the attention of the Panel and the Overview and Scrutiny Commission for consideration as they arose.