Agenda item

To hear the Call-In of any decision made at the Cabinet meeting prior to this meeting or made by Cabinet Members, other Council Committees or a delegated officer and published within five working days of this meeting.

Members should bring their Cabinet agenda to the meeting.

Members should consider any other decision published in the five working days before this meeting.

The purpose of this meeting is to decide whether to refer back any decision to the decision maker.

Members gave consideration to the Cabinet reports of 27 October 2011 and after careful consideration Members decided not to call-in any decision made by the Cabinet at their meeting.

However, the Committee requested further information on Cabinet Agenda Item 10 - Disabled People's Plan Update.

Members welcomed the progress made in the development of the plan but two general questions around Personalisation Budgets were asked. Was the Council still committed to offering a free brokering service for those people that felt that they could not cope with Personalisation? Also could information be given on how the market place was developing in relation to Personalisation.

 [Subsequent to the meeting, officers provided the following response:

“The Council is committed to ensuring that individuals and carers have access to appropriate support throughout the personal budget process so that they are able to exercise choice and control when identifying, planning and securing services.

Appropriate support will vary from person to person according to their abilities, strength of their own personal networks and general confidence.  Wherever possible the Council will offer the individual and their carer choice as to how and who supports them through the personal budget process.  Support will be provided in varying combinations by Council care managers, voluntary organisations commissioned by the Council, family, friends or other residents who have already been through the process and wish to assist others in a similar situation.

Support provided by the care managers and voluntary organisations will be ‘enabling’ in nature; providing the individual and their carer with the understanding and confidence to gradually manage for themselves.  The support will be staged over a period of time; initially ‘doing for’, then ‘doing with’ as the person gains confidence and understanding, then ‘monitoring’.  The Council is committed to offering this enabling service to people at no charge.  However, if the individual wishes to continue to use the service after the ‘enabling’ period then this will need to be funded from their personal budget

 Notes:

1.      Extract from our current personal budget guidelines under Delivery and support

‘We will make sure that individuals and carers have access to appropriate supportthroughout the Personal Budget process so that they are able to exercise choice and control when identifying, planning and securing services’

2.      Funding the support planning and brokerage support will be met from savings generated by switching to prepaid cards as more cost effective to administer.  Care managers freed up to push on with reviews and ensuring that existing service, having had their needs assessed using the Resource Allocation System (RAS), are using a service will generate savings as in the majority of cases the spend will be less per person.  Ensuring that support planning/brokerage is enabling in nature will reduce support required for LD/PD service users in future years.  CSED (the Department of Health Care Services Efficiency Delivery team) undertook an exercise modelling costs around support planning and brokerage services for Herefordshire 3 years ago.  In summary the results showed that utilising the voluntary sector for support planning and brokerage was more cost effective due to lower hourly rates. Voluntary organisations have shown they can be ‘better at’ utilising social capital and informal arrangement to meet care needs which are more cost effective.

The Council is in dialogue with a number of voluntary organisations looking at the types of activities that individuals and their carers may wish to engage in.  We are also gathering examples of best practice from other councils.  Developing the marketplace will be a gradual process; as individuals move through the support planning process it will become clear where there may be ‘gaps’ that need to be filled on a more formal basis. Many successful arrangements have required little or localised arrangements supported by the voluntary and third sector.  

For example Matthew, Leighton and Andrew were in a day service.  They all enjoyed outdoor work. They are now volunteers with the National Trust. They pool their PBs to pay for one support worker to provide transport and support them as volunteers. The support worker is also a volunteer; the support they need as a consequence reduced.

To support the development process the Council is establishing a personal budgets user group to actively capture what is and isn’t working well and what should be available but isn’t.”

RESOLVED -    

1.      That the decisions made by Cabinet at their meeting on 27 October 2011 be endorsed and noted and no call-in be made of any decision. 

      2.   That officers be asked to provide responses to the issues outlined above.