Chief Executive Officer’s ReportJanuary – February 2011
Compass Disability Services Core Activities
Again the past two months have been full of uncertainty as we deal with the unravelling of cuts within the public sector. We have been concentrating on the production of Compass Disability Services budgets for April 2011 – March 2012, these are now completed and will be presented to the Board at the March meeting. The individual project budgets are satisfactory, however strategic and governance is still quite fluid and may not be completely set until the beginning of April, this is primarily because we are awaiting significant funding decisions. One of these decisions is our application to the Governments Transition Funding where we have applied for 120k to support the development of the organisation over the next year.
During this period I have been having conversations with CEO’s of other organisations regarding partnership and collaborative working.
As I mentioned in the last report we were asked to assist Somerset County Council (SCC) in their consultation around Eligibility Criteria, additionally I was asked to be an independent chair at these events. As a range of senior managers were in attendance from SCC I feel our professionalism to delivery was well noted.
As you all should be aware we will sadly be losing Alison Orman (Mawhood) in March. Alison has been with us for five years now and has been instrumental in the development of our Independent Living Support Services. As you will know Alison recently got married and moved to Dorset and will be leaving us to take up a similar post delivering services in Bournemouth.
Service Development
Funding has been agreed to continue the NHS Somerset’s equality work and the Local Offer Payments for Wiltshire County Council’s (WCC) Children and Families.
At the last full Board Meeting the Trustees signed off the Health and Social Care Network proposal. Funding of 25k has now been secured, we will be commencing work to develop this project in the very near future.
We have secured 16k from NHS Somerset to develop a brokerage web based database that will support the other work we are undertaking with them.
Prior to April we will be completing a feasibility study to consider increasing the look, size and distribution of the Networker to make it self funding. We will also be looking at Accessible Somerset and its viability.
Forthcoming Activity
Over the next month I have meetings with both Miriam Madison and Clare Steele from SCC to discuss a range of items including brokerage, support planning and co-production.
With Alison leaving us, in the interim I am going to have to pick up a degree of her work, especially in dealing with our contract managers, so I will be back to knowing the Trowbridge road quite well. Michelle will be picking up some of the office tasks that I currently undertake, particularly relating to the management of governance files and the control of the overheads budgets.
Quality Management
The Quality Manual has now been fully introduced. Any future changes to the manual will need to be recorded.
Michelle, Nikki and Paula spent a whole Saturday in late January beginning the process of restructuring the Electronic filing system to ensure that all generic documents are version controlled, accessed through a hyperlink on the Version Control Log and added to the Internal Audit process to ensure that all systems are evaluated. This process is nearly complete.
Document referencing has been introduced.
Our ISO 9001 2008 Assessment by the British Assessment Bureau will take place on the 25th March 2011. We are confident that certification can be secured.
Complaints and Compliments
As part of our work to become ISO 9001 2008 compliant we have fully reviewed and amended all of our Complaint Procedures and literature.
We now have a Formal Complaints Procedure and a Negative Feedback Procedure. Formal complaints are those where a full investigation into the circumstances and corrective action is required, these are usually rare, however we have received 2 formal complaints in this period both relating to Service Users who had received support from Theresa Mulberry.
Our Negative Feedback Procedure enables us to monitor all of the small groans, mumbles and minor complaints that can be easily resolved. 12 Negative Feedback reports have been made in this period relating to payroll, Disability Somerset, the Networker and general cleanliness issues. All have been resolved satisfactorily.
Wiltshire Direct Payment Support Service (WDPSS)
We are now registered as self accredited providers of support services in Bath and north East Somerset (B&NES), but with no service users as yet. Julian is helping with this development and a project proposal for provision of services to individuals for B&NES and other areas will be available at the next trustees meeting.
The provision of brokerage services in Wiltshire have been delayed again, by the slippage in WCC’s timetable for the contract containing this work. We have developed potential subcontracting relationships with two lead providers for this work, and again a proposal will be put to the next trustees meeting. The contract is not now likely to be functioning until September.
Personal Budgets are now being delivered to a small number in Wiltshire and Alison and Julian met with WCC staff to determine the new systems and how this would change the work we do. The changes are minimal and have been relayed to all staff.
WCC staff attended one of our team meetings to establish how best to categorize existing service users according to the contract variation from 1 April. There are many outstanding questions, which WCC need to make policy decisions on.Alison is also working with office staff and WCC staff to determine the best recording system for monitoring under the new contract.
Steven visited the team meeting in February to go through the new quality procedures.
NHS Somerset Personal Budget Pilot
This is progressing with Alison supporting the NHS to establish procedures as each service user goes through the system. Julie and Louise are the advisors on this and have each completed one support plan. Financially the project is becoming much more lucrative, as we are now being paid for the development work, for an extension to another pilot for stroke patients, which will mean we have the brokerage for another 10 patients, and for the development of an online brokerage resource directory.
In light of this project a new CRB procedure has been agreed enabling us to support individual employers and other small organisation to get checks completed on their staff. This will also be useful for the Apprenticeship Project and the Compass Equality Network.
Compass Equality Network
We are pushing forward with the revamp of this project with the intention of launching it in April 2011. The design of a new leaflet is underway and we will be starting a promotion campaign during March to raise awareness. We have also been conducting some mapping research into organisations that presently exist, in order to make contact when the time comes and target for membership.
To date we have not received any offers of funding from our proposed business plan which was sent to all public agencies at the end of last year.
Nat attended the NHS Somerset Patient & Public Involvement and Communications Steering Group meeting on Thursday 13 January in Taunton.
Richard, Michelle & Nat met with two trustees from Somerset Gay Health on Wednesday 26 January to present our proposal for taking-over the organisation and outline our strengths as the best organisation to do this. We felt that the meeting went well but have since been informed that we have not been successful in this process.
Community Cohesion Forum (CCF)
CCF in its current form will come to an end on 31st March 2011 as there will no longer be any funding available to employ a development worker. However, the decision of the Somerset Strategic Partnership (SSP) Stronger Communities Group (the Group which CCF reports to) has been to continue with their work in a small way until a decision is made about what, if anything, will replace the full SSP. They have agreed that the CCF should do the same and so the CCF may continue to meet as a group to keep the links established for the future when more funding may become available. CCF will definitely meet one more time in April to further discuss the above option and make a more informed decision. Therefore a suitable date, time and venue is currently being established for mid to late April for this meeting to take place.
Other work which has taken place over January and February and which will continue until the end of the project includes the Faith Audit. Further to the update regarding this given in December, the full amount of funding required has now been sourced and work on this has started. The survey/ questionnaire has been drafted and a mapping exercise of which faith groups to target has been started. The aim is to finish the surveying of groups and the data input which will follow this by the end of March with a view to having an event to showcase the findings in Mid May facilitated by the Somerset Faith and Belief Forum.
Another on-going piece of work which will be of use to any form of the CCF which may continue post March 2011 is the Communications Plan. This will be finalised by the end of March and will outline all the messages that the CCF needs to get across, the partners and organisations that CCF needs to communicate with and the form that the communication needs to take based on the variety of audiences.
A library of good practice case studies is also being compiled. This will highlight all the good work being done by various agencies in the county and can be used by all partners in order to demonstrate what is happening in the county in terms of good community cohesion initiatives. This will ideally be a web-based library that can be added to on an on-going basis.
The CCF will also continue to put forward the case for the need to consider community cohesion issues in decision making and large developments. This is currently especially important in terms of the Hinkley Point ‘C’ development in the Sedgemoor/ West Somerset district areas.
Compass Disability Network – Somerset
Sedgemoor District Council Disability Forum (Sedgemoor District Council funded)
A meeting was held with Angela Farmer at Sedgemoor District Council (SDC). Angela has agreed to extend the current contract until the end of March next year. Costs will remain the same for the Forum. We will not be charging SDC for representation in the next financial year mainly due to the fact that there hasn’t been a need for this service recently.
We have agreed to facilitate four Disability Forums during the next Financial Year. One will take place in Bridgwater, one in Burnham on Sea; the remaining two Forums will take place in rural areas such as Cheddar and Nether Stowey. We will also be trialling the idea of asking for a contribution towards the cost of lunch or possibly asking people to pay to purchase lunch. The first Forum of the year will take place on the 8th June at Victoria Park in Bridgwater. Venues for the remainder will be booked shortly and dates confirmed.
Taunton Deane Disability Discussion Group – 4 Meetings per year funded by Taunton Deane Borough Council.
We have submitted an application for funding of this group for the next financial year to the Taunton Deane Community Grant Fund. We have been informed that our application has been passed to Councillors for consideration and hope to hear further soon.
Under the current funding arrangements, the last meeting of the year will take place on 29th March in the Mendip Room. The leader of the Council – Cllr John Williams will be attending this meeting to give an update on the progress made following the points raised at the September meeting. A number of issues were raised at this meeting relating to access to the town centre amongst other things so it will be good to see what progress has been made.
Somerset County Council (SCC Service Level Agreement funded)
Disability Equality Questionnaire
Approx. 110 questionnaires were returned completed – giving a 15% return rate. They have now been passed to SCC who will be entering the data onto their system and compiling a report.
Age Equality Questionnaire
Approx. 80 questionnaires were returned giving a return rate of 17%. In this instance questionnaires were only sent to those that have requested to receive them. We are trying to be more targeted with the information we send out to our members now that we have the facility with the new database. Many members commented about the complex language used in the questionnaire, this was something which was outlined at the outset to the commissioner and we have feedback further comments to them. We have also responded to our members by putting an article in this month’s newsletter.
Update Accessible Venues Database
We have started to gather the necessary data for this piece of work and have found that there are a significant number of venues which are not currently on the SCCl website. We need to discuss this further with Tom Rutland at SCC
and agree how to proceed. If they would like all of the venues contacted it will use more of our SLA contract ‘events’ which needs to be agreed.
Mystery Shopping
We were recently approached by the Environment Directorate at SCC to carry out mystery shopping visits to five waste disposal sites in the County. The aim was to understand how accessible the sites are for disabled people and look at any developments that could be considered for future. 2 visits to each site took place with a range of results recorded. A report has been submitted for their review.
Eligibility Threshold Criteria Consultation
5 consultation events took place during December and January to consult with service users concerning the proposals to change the eligibility threshold criteria for receiving care services in Somerset from Moderate to Substantial/Critical. Richard chaired each event held at various venues across the County. 4 events were charged to the SLA.
Other Compass Disability Network activities
Network Enquiries
1 enquiry was received in the period;
Problems with blue badge application and problem with provision of seating in Marks &Spencer Yeovil – info sent on Somerset Direct / Age UK / Equality & Human Rights Commission and South Somerset Disability Forum.
Membership
Current Somerset Membership 733
No. of members deleted in January / December – 15 in total, details below;
10– No contact
4– Deceased
1– Personal Reasons
Voice and Influence Project (VIP)
On the 9th of December 2010 three Champions along with Rachel Bye and myself attended the Equal Rights, Equal Voices event in Bristol. The day looked at establishing and developing relationships between equality groups and other voluntary sector networks. It also looked at some of the challenges to engaging with communities and the solutions to these challenges so that equality communities can have influence in the new decision making environment (e.g. local enterprise partnerships, Big Society etc)
Cliff Puddy has been invited and will be attending the Rehabilitation Stakeholders Group on the 1st of March at Lyngford House.
The VIP peer support meeting is due on the 24th February 2011.
The Hub
There hasn’t been a Hub meeting since the last CEO report. Unfortunately we are unable to proceed with the Intergenerational Project around Transition as the Transition team have been told not to proceed with any external projects until further notice.
The Hub is next due to meet on the 16th February 2011 and will be looking at Staff Supervision.
Compass Disability Network – North Somerset
The official end date of this project (in the eyes of our funders) was December 2010 although the work plan continues until March 2011. Therefore a substantial amount of time during January has been spent writing reports and completing progress updates for our funders. We are pleased to be on-track for completing the majority of tasks by the end of the financial year.
A report regarding the initial consultation meetings held with members in North Somerset has been completed and sent to our contacts at North Somerset Council (NSC), as well as to some other officers with responsibilities which arose as issues during this process. The report has been sent to all people that took part and contributed to the piece of work and is now available online. Any feedback from the authorities will be uploaded to the relevant web-page and disseminated via the newsletter for information and feedback.