Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Shehryar Ahmad-Wallana. Councillor Richard Mills was present as his substitute.

None.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 6 November 2017 be approved as a correct record.

It was confirmed that there were no Part II items, and that all business would therefore be conducted in public.

Stephen Ashley, Chairman of the Adult Safeguarding Board, provided Members with an update, following the presentation of the Board's Annual Report at the meeting held on 2 October 2017. Mr Ashley began by addressing the Committee's request for further information as a result of that presentation.

Regarding the training being conducted, the Committee was informed that the Board had conducted two multi-agency seminars that had been well received. Moving forward, the Board had put together a number of packages for further multi-agency training, though uptake of the offered training had been low. It had therefore been agreed that training providers would bear the cost of the initial training sessions, should uptake continue to be low. If popular, further training sessions would have a cost assigned, and while this cost was still to be determined, it would be minimal. H4All would receive a discount against the final cost.

It was recognised that partner agencies were already conducting their own in-house training, which was assessed by the Board. However, concerns remained that these sessions were only sufficient to meet the agency's own mandatory, legal training requirements, and did not include a multi-agency element, which the Board's programme of training was seeking to address.

Regarding the sharing of data with the Immigration Removal Centre, the Committee was informed that, unlike many neighbouring authorities, Hillingdon had an excellent relationship with both the Immigration Removal Centre and the Border Force. A number of meetings between parties were being held, at which a large subset of data was already being shared. The Immigration Removal Centre had now applied to the Home Office to be able to share all data with the Board, and the results of this request were awaited.

It was confirmed that the Border Force was informing the Board of particular areas of focus, such as modern day slavery, to enable to Board to engage as early as possible.

With regard to partnership working between the Board and local universities, the Committee was advised that the Board had approached local universities with a view to partnership working, and had agreed to work with Uxbridge University on a number of training videos and associated media work. The Board remained eager to work with Brunel University.

Consideration was then given to a verbal update on the work of the Board since the presentation of the Annual Report at the meeting in October 2017. It was confirmed that the report was verbal, due to the confidential nature of the data being discussed.

The Board's dashboard, aligned to the Board's priorities for the coming year, was presented and discussed. It was confirmed that the dashboard included data compiled from a number of partner agencies, including the Police and health agencies, and allowed the Board to identify areas of concern. These areas of concern were discussed at regular meetings, then audited to obtain additional detail and to agree relevant actions, before being reported to Executive Board Members.

It was confirmed that non-confidential data from the dashboard would be included  ...  view the full minutes text for item 43.

Consideration was given to a tabled list of draft recommendations to Cabinet, resulting from the Committee's review into loneliness and social isolation in older residents.

Members were supportive of the proposed recommendations, though requested that the report to Cabinet include data on the number of older residents living alone, together with the number of older residents engaging with Council services.

With regard to Bell Farm Christian Centre's need for an urn, as discussed at the previous Committee meeting, it was confirmed that the Centre had purchased a new urn from its own budget.

RESOLVED: 

1.    That the proposed draft recommendations be agreed, and

2.    That authority be delegated to the clerk to draft the Committee's final report to Cabinet, under consultation with the Chairman and Labour lead.

RESOLVED:  That the Cabinet Forward Plan be noted.

Consideration was given to the Committee's Work Programme for 2017-18. It was agreed that, given the short timescale ahead of the forthcoming local elections, it was not feasible for the Committee to conduct a second review in the current municipal year.

However, it was suggested that a further informational item be commissioned for a meeting in the New Year, and Members were requested to forward suggestions for item topics to the Chairman or clerk. One such suggestion was for an update on the work of the Council to support Hillingdon's Armed Forces Community Covenant, and it was agreed that this be considered.

RESOLVED: 

1.    That the Work Programme 2017-18 be noted;

2.    That consideration be given to an information item on the work of the Council to support the Armed Forces Community Covenant; and

3.    That Members forward suggestions for further information items to the Chairman or clerk, for consideration.