DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY
ALCOHOL AND DRUG PARTNERSHIP
Minute of meeting held on 22nd June 2017 at 10.00am in Lochar South
Meeting Room, Crichton Hall, Dumfries
Present: Grahame Clarke, Jackie Davies, Barbara Zaman, Stephen Hastie,
Katy Lewis, Vikki Binnie, Graeme Galloway, Gordon Pattinson, Alex McCallum
and Denise Moffat
Apologies: Lillian Cringles, Julie White, Claire Brown and Graham Stewart
Attending: Margaret Woodward, ADP Support Team (Minute)
Item1. / Welcome and Apologies
Introductions were made and Grahame advised the group that David Coulter had left his position with the Third Sector Interface and would no longer be attending. David was thanked for his contribution to ADP. Jackie and Grahame will meet with Claire Brown from Third Sector Interface who will attend ADP in the interim until a permanent replacement is confirmed.
2. / Budget
Katy Lewis, NHS Director Of Finance, attended for this part of the meeting. A replacement for Mairi, ADPs previous finance support, is now in post, although in the interim Graham Stewart will continue to support ADP. Grahame thanked Graham for his help to date.
ADP funding has been baselined into NHS finances – approximately £1.5m.
Katy proposed that a paper be brought to every ADP regarding funding/proposed funding/underspends and ongoing planning for spending.
Katy is willing to come back to any future meetings if required. Grahame confirmed with Katy that there were no concerns with the budget so far this year, with the budget being on target.
Action: Grahame to arrange a meeting with Katy.
3. / Best Bar None Presentation by Arlene Campbell
Grahame declared a conflict of interest in this item, indicating that he does work for the Scottish Business Resilience Centre which administers Best bar None (BBN) nationally and that his company was also responsible for coordinating the work of the independent assessors. Grahame indicated that he would abstain from any decision today and that he would not participate in the discussion, other than to clarify any points.
Information packs were circulated around the group. Arlene Campbell, the National BBN Coordinator, indicated that she had been in post for 2 years and co-ordinates the Best Bar None nationally. BBN has been in existence since 2005 and has been in Dumfries and Annan for approximately 4 years, with 4 venues still retained. At present Arlene was administering 2 schemes with some support from Police Scotland locally but Arlene suggested that was a partnership approach and buy in from partners, the scheme could by grown to dramatically increase the footprint across the area.
Arlene explained that the scheme was based on the five licensing principles and aimed to encourage licensed premises to raise their standards by adopting better processes and procedures in respect of these key areas to improve overall customer safety and experience. Priority areas this year were around drunkenness, vulnerability and disorder. Each premises entering the scheme was independently assessed over approximately 80 questions depending on type of venue and depending on the score would be awarded a bronze silver or gold award. Various materials were available from the BBN website including a guide for premises entering the scheme. Funding is available centrally at £100 + VAT for each venue and goes directly into the local pot, partly used to cover the assessment and partly to spend on other things such as a launch or awards ceremony or publicity material. In some areas ADPs also contribute funds to support the scheme. It was noted, nationally there are 6 – 8 ADPs on board. Arlene’s role is to help set up the scheme, which has to be in partnership. There is no expense to partners, only commitment of their time.
The next step would be to get partners together, work with the trade, launch and take forward. A group will need to be established to do this. Guidance for starting a new group was distributed.
Discussions took place regarding progressing BBN in Dumfries and Galloway. The Police are keen to promote this. It was agreed that some of the ADP underspends from the previous year could be used to set up the scheme initially in Dumfries and Galloway. After some discussion, the unanimously agreed to establish a BBN scheme and partnership in Dumfries and Galloway.
Action: A group consisting of Police, Fire, Council – Trading Standards/LSO/Community Planning, Town Centre Management, NHS, ADP and any others who may be interested be invited to attend an initial meeting. Grahame and Margaret to organise.
Action: Margaret to send presentation to ADP and packs to those not at today’s meeting.
4. / Minutes of meeting held on 13th March 2017
Agreed.
5. / Matters Arising:
5.1 ADS Evaluation
An update was provided as an Appendix that was sent out with minute of previous meeting.
5.2 Draft Strategy
No comments were received on draft Strategy and this would be discussed later on the agenda.
5.3 Prevention/Education
Grahame was not able to meet with David before David left his position.
5.4 Website
NHS have suggested accessing the website via the NHS portal but this is not easy to find. This is not a priority at the moment and will be looked at later in the year.
5.5 Performance Officer
Closing date for this post is today, shortlisting will take place next week and interviews held on 18th July.
6. / Contracts Update
6.1 Young Carers Contract
Grahame/Jackie continue to liaise with procurement regarding this contract. The current position is that it may still need to go to open procurement. The Young Carers were not previously contracted on the terms originally thought – a few years ago when ADP received extra monies, a decision was made by ADP to give them top up money to add to a contract they already had with the Council. It is possible the funding may be able to be provided under a Service Level Agreement (SLA).
Following discussion by members it was agreed to continue this funding for the length of the council contract. If this can be done under an SLA, ADP will honour the agreement for the same duration as the Council contract which is due to expire in March 2018. The Council is looking to extend the contract with the Centre for a further year thereafter to enable an alternative funding model to be looked at and it was agreed ADP will honour this to March 2019 if the extension is granted. It was agreed by members that notice would be given to the Carers Centre that ADP funding would cease thereafter and that CAPSM carers would be catered for under the existing council contract.
6.2 Recovery Activities and Employability
Grahame indicated that on review of this contract it was established that the previous employability contract was not specifically for drug and alcohol clients, though drug and alcohol clients could attend the project. In the current financial situation Grahame questioned whether this represented best value. Grahame also highlighted that the revised employability and activities contract was of such a low value and questioned whether this money could be used more meaningfully over the next 18 months.
Grahame highlighted that the ADP Support Team are struggling with the amount of work to be done with 1 full time and 2 part staff at present. He proposed that the money for the proposed employability and activities contract (circa £30k per annum) be used to employ a Support Team worker for 18 months, with part of the post to work with social groups and communities to determine what activities are available across the region that people in recovery can access. This could then be incorporated into a service directory. The other part of the post will be to take on pieces of work within the Support Team. Grahame acknowledged that this was unusual but highlighted that the current workload placed upon the ADP Support Team was becoming unmanageable and that this offered a cost effective short-term solution. Grahame stressed that at the end of the 18-month period the post would fall and the monies would return to the provision of a commissioned service Following some discussion, members agreed to go ahead with this proposal.
Action: ADP Support Team to take this forward.
It was also noted a new Contract Monitoring template has been introduced for commissioned services. This will provide a more robust process than before and was welcomed by the current service providers.
7. / ABIs
Paper circulated with Agenda.
An ABI paper was discussed at the NHS Board in April. There are still delivery issues with Primary Care and A & E in particular. The ADP Support Team is looking at various ways of increasing the numbers as per the action plan previously circulated. The national lead for ABIs at the Scottish Government is meeting with Grahame and Jackie shortly to see what help she can give. Jackie stated that nationally the majority of leads are either clinical staff or from addiction services with very few being ADP leads.
Grahame indicated that if there was no improvement in the figures this year, it was likely that there would be further questions from the Government at the end of the year. Grahame indicated that he had written to Jeff and Julie to highlight the need for the NHS to help progress this matter, particularly in priority settings. Grahame will arrange a meeting with Graham Abrines, Graeme Gault and Gail Meier to being to link into key individuals that can assist in driving ABIs in each area and ensuring that we had a better undertaking of the difficulties that had to be overcome. It was agreed that Denise would also attend and Justin Murray be invited.
Action: Grahame to arrange meeting.
8. / Service User Involvement
Paper circulated with Agenda.
Barbara provided a brief overview of her paper. In the past, alcohol and drug services have found it difficult to evidence that they were engaging service users in various aspects of service user involvement (SUI) including engaging them in service design and delivery. Therefore a self assessment form was developed to capture how well services were engaging with their service users and where there were gaps. The information contained in the forms identified that there was a need for a specific piece of work to be developed around SUI. In October 2015, ADP agreed to fund a SUI project, supported by Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) which will finish in March 2018. Each service now has an identified service user lead and services are expected to complete a yearly self assessment. A tool kit is being developed which will provide new staff into services with the information and guidance around SUI.
At a national level Dumfries and Galloway ADP is the first ADP to develop this kind of project, which has been recognised as best practice. A workshop was held recently at the national conference and good feedback was received from other ADPs who would like to progress this.
Grahame thanked Barbara for her on-going work.
9. / Public Protection Arrangements
Paper circulated with Agenda.
Gordon briefly summarised the powerpoint presentation. After some discussion by members it was agreed that the ADP will report to the Chief Officers Group on a quarterly basis and also to the IJB.
Action: Margaret to send powerpoint presentation with minute.
10. / Strategy
Grahame indicated that the Strategy paper previously circulated had been amended and was tabled today for further consideration by members. Grahame indicated that the changes were mainly as a result of further consideration by the ADP Support Team. In particular, the priorities had been expanded and broadened. Grahame asked that members consider the revised paper and provide comment by 7 July 2017. Grahame indicated that once comments had been received, the final draft of the Strategy would go to external consultation, as was the case with previous Strategies. The consultation period would be confirmed at a later date.
Action: Comments on draft Strategy to Grahame by 7th July 2017.
11. / Governance
Grahame introduced the paper, which had been circulated in advance. Grahame indicated that he had tried to reflect a more prescriptive governance procedure to increase accountability and reinforce the concept of cabinet responsibility. Grahame asked that members consider the document and provide feedback, particularly on issues such as membership and the planning cycle. Gordon suggested that removing reference to specific posts in the suggested membership should be considered, allowing organisations to consider the most appropriate person for the role. This was agreed
Action: Comments on Draft Government to Grahame by 7th July 2017.
12. / Items for Noting:
Drug Related Deaths
Paper circulated with Agenda.
Support Team Meeting
Paper circulated with Agenda.
Partners Update
Paper circulated with Agenda.
Workforce Development Update
One meeting has been held and will meet again in July/August. A steering group will be brought together to implement workforce development.
13. / Any Other Business
None
14. / Date and Time of Next Meeting
23rd August at 10.00am in Meeting Room 3, Crichton Hall