LOCAL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP FOR EALING
EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING (NUMBER 26)
Wednesday 10 November 2010 at 5.00pm
Room 3.11, Perceval House, Ealing W5 2BY
MINUTES
ATTENDANCE:
Executive Board Members
Julian Bell (Chair)Leader of London Borough of Ealing
Martin Smith Chief Executive, Ealing Council
Robert CreightonChief Executive, NHS Ealing
Inder MatharuJob Centre Plus
David SameJamesEaling Hospital (on behalf of Julie Lowe)
Mark SellisEaling Hammersmith & West London College (on behalf of Paula Whittle)
Ricky SinghDirector, Ealing Race and Equality Council
Ian JenkinsEaling Police (on behalf of Andy Rowell)
Simon HallA2 Dominion Housing Group
Carmel CahillEaling CVS (on behalf on Andy Roper)
Also Attending
Matthew BoothDirector, Policy & Performance, Ealing Council
Ann GriffithsPolicy & Performance, Ealing Council
Emily InmanPolicy & Performance, Ealing Council
Imogen HughesEconomic Development Officer, Ealing Council
Charles BarnardHead of Early Years childcare and SAFE 0-12
Stacey BakerCommittee Administrator, Ealing Council
Observing
Errol LawrencePartnerships and Policy Officer, LB Barking and Dagenham
Sean GillenEconomic Development Manager, LB Richmond
- Welcome and Apologies
The Chair welcomed all those present to the meeting and asked that they introduce themselves.
Apologies for absence were received from Susmita Sen of Ealing Homes and Steve Hench of the London Fire Brigade. Apologies were also received from Andy Roper and Carmel Cahill attended on his behalf. Others attending on behalf of members of the LSP Exec introduced themselves.
- Minutes and Matters Arising
It was agreed tThat the minutes of the meeting held on 26 July 2010 be are a true and correct record of the meeting.
2.1Matters Arising
The Chair highlighted the recent Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) and asked the Board to comment on the impact for their respective organisations.
The Chair started by outlining the impact of the CSR to the Council. The first round of savings would be published in the next two weeks for the 30th November Cabinet meeting and there was a target of £53million of savings, which equated to a 25% reduction in budget. The Chair highlighted that depending on the next Finance Settlement it could have to increase to a 30% reduction and that further future savings would need to be made to reach the target.
Martin Smith, Chief Executive of Ealing Council, stated that the first tranch of savings to go to Cabinet on was intended to be the largest with a total value of savings between £45 and £50 million, around half of these agreed and the other half to be further consulted on and developed, and that the process had been intentionally frontloaded.
Robert Creighton, Chief Executive of NHS Ealing, stated that whilst the health service was permitted to have real time growth (0.01%) it equated to little in reality with increasing pressures on the service. A thesis was being developed on the gap between cost cutting the service as it stands and the income received over the next 4-5 years, which would be published by Christmas. The gap was in the hundreds of millions of pounds and activities to reduce the gap would fall heavily on hospitals. Spending power would be reduced by between 15-20% in this time.
David SameJames, Ealing Hospital, stated that there was a major change in the primary care sector and it was no surprise to see a reconfiguration of services.
The Chair asked Carmel Cahill, Ealing CVS, if she was aware of the proposal to hold off funding decisions for six months. Carmel Cahill stated she was aware of this and that broadly speaking most good voluntary sector organisations had planned ahead for budget cuts and her own organisation had already made redundancies with a second tranch due in March 2011. Carmel Cahill further stated that there was a lot of issues around adult social care providing organisations as they had been asked to provide services without knowing if there was a market, and the private sector had been asked to pick up some services. Carmel Cahill concluded that there were big issues on the structure and future of the voluntary sector and information from central government was awaited.
Ian Jenkins, Ealing Police, stated that they were aiming for 4% efficiency savings each year (roughly 20% compounded) and there was currently a lot of restructuring underway, which would continue until 2012. Ian Jenkins stated that Ealing is currently a protected Borough meaning that police officers are unable to transfer stations. There had also been no new staff as recruitment for PCs had largely stopped and recruitment for PCOs had stopped. Ian Jenkins highlighted that the task now was to keep current staff focused as the process for voluntary redundancies for backroom staff had now started and would be completed by March 2011. In response to a question from the Chair Ian Jenkins confirmed that these redundancies were not Ealing specific and were Metropolitan wide.
Mark Sellis, Ealing Hammersmith & West London College, stated that there was likely to be a cut in rates per learner, that Train to Gain had been cut completely and it was likely funds would be directed toward young apprentices. Fees for college courses had also been reviewed. The response to the situation would be efficiency savings, pay restraints, restructuring and redundancies. Mark Sellis stated that on the positive side there would be no separate budgets and the focus would now be on people not in education, employment or training.
Simon Hall, A2 Dominion Housing Group, outlined that although the detail was not known, from the national picture housing will face large scale cuts. There would be housing benefit reductions and other factors would affect the services to residents, especially the vulnerable. In terms of shared ownership, new home building would be difficult.
Ricky Singh, Ealing Race and Equality Council, commented that there had been an upsurge in casework and it was mainly people worried about work and people employed in the voluntary sector. This would probably escalate in the challenging situations ahead.
Inder Matharua, Job Centre Plus, stated that there would be a mixture of policy, organisational and restructuring reforms and a single work programme would replace all other work programmes. He stated that Job Centre Plus was looking at a 26-27% reduction in staffing levels; around 9200 in the first 2 years. Most redundancies would be back office as there was a big push toward online resources and facilities. Front line staff would be protected and Job Centre Plus was currently spending £10 million a year in Ealing. Inder Matharua also stated that on the positive side there would be better autonomy and guidance on using public sector assets to maximise services.
Martin Smith commented that he would like to add to Inder Matharua’s positivity and that the cuts within the Council were intentionally frontloaded to build stability by Years 2, 3 and 4 and it was hoped good working practices would arise from new ways of working.
The Chair commented that he felt the Council was in a good financial and managerial position going into the budget cuts and Matthew Booth, Director, Policy & Performance, Ealing Council, commented that there was a strong history of LSP working in Ealing which would be hugely beneficial.
- Feedback from OSC
Ann Griffiths reported that there were two recommendations from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 4 November, as follows:
i)That officers be requested to report further to an early meeting of this Committee on the implementation of the new Local Strategic Partnership structure and the scoping work that was shortly to be undertaken for the new key strategic boards and project groups.
ii)That officers be requested to submit a further update report in approximately one year’s time assessing the impact of the new Local Strategic Partnership structure in terms of improved partnership working and the success of the new action focussed boards and project groups in delivering measurable outcomes.
The Chair commented that a delivery group was essential and that the role of the LSP should remain strategic.
- LSP Review: Update and Proposed Future Projects
Ann Griffiths, Policy Officer, presented the report to the Board stating that in looking at the future of the LSP it would be essential to ensure it was fit for purpose, met the challenges in terms of the CSR and focused on priority areas looked at in the review. It was proposed that the LSP be central in driving value for money for services in Ealing and should be a cross-cutting body at the heart of meeting challenges.
Ann Griffiths continued that the projects were not just about budget reduction but also performance management, and monitoring outcomes, and a range of other changes facing providers of services, such as a. There would also be a shift toward ‘localism’ and the impact of the localism bill, and developments such as local enterprise partnerships would be coming into existence, potentially providing new local structures with which to work.
Ann Griffiths stated that the Delivery Management Group (DMG) prioritised projects that would create measurable savings potential for partners, improve outcomes for local people, reductions and add value to what was already happening. The DMG considered around 30 project ideas, collated from research within the Council’s policy team and suggestions from partners, and prioritised these in order of feasibility (such as andresource required and timescales) and their likely impact in terms of being able to deliver the desired efficiencies and service improvements. As a result of this and set out three key areas for projects have been selected to focus on.
The three proposed areas were improving partnership collection and use of data and information, identifying high need families in Ealing, and developing a joint asset strategy.
Ann Griffiths outlined the project on improving data and information would look at where information was currently collected, held,analysed and used,and what was done with it in orderwith a view to to takinge a single approach that would reduce duplication and cut costs. Each organisation held information on it’s customers and this information could be used better jointly as partners to see how well services were being delivered in each area, to understand our communities and target resources in as streamlined a way as possible.
On identifying high need families it was intended that this would enable services to be delivered more efficiently, by finding to find out what services were used most prolifically and where, and considering how.Sservices could then be joined up based on family or geographical need to deliver better services for customers.
On developing an asset strategy it was hoped that there could be better use of assets and that they could be used in a more cohesive and streamlined way, to be achieved through a process of identifying property assets across partners, how they are currently used, where they could be put to better use, facilitate more joibed up provision, or be managed or owned through alternative means.
Ann Griffiths stated that these projects do no exist independently; that they all contribute to each other and to overarching goals of value for money and improved outcomes across partners.and tThe overall aim was to contribute to an effective process whereby local organisations understand their customers and local where the high needs, and deliver services as efficiently as possible to them, making the most of our joint resources and monitoring effectiveness, was in order to produce a reduction in costs and better partnership working to deliver improved outcomes.
The Chair asked the Board if there were any other projects in the list they would like to see prioritised and noted that the ‘review opportunities for efficiencies in managing chronic care conditions’ project had caught his eye. It was agreed however that this work should be considered for a future round of projects rather than considered immediately.
Robert Creighton commented that he had long been an advocate of the requirement to identify high need families within the borough, which would benefit everybody. He further commented that the scale of the data-sharing project was not clear and that there could be issues of confidentiality.
Ann Griffiths stated that the proposed shared information would be strategic and customer insight informationfocussed in the first instance, but that any and therefore issues of confidentiality and data sharing would be scoped fully and worked through from the outset. However, a large number of other areas have achieved local single data sources and so while there may be issues to overcome it was not anticipated that these would be insurmountable in the long term.should not arise. The work associated with this and the other areas of focus of the LSP would however beis would be a substantial; project and more detail around the timescales and resources required would be given in January.
It was suggested that the LSP should also consider the project around a single employment programme, though again that this might be worth thinking about in the longer term rather than as a priority project immediately. Inder Matharu commented that with changes down the line in welfare reform there would be a huge migration from people on incapacity benefit to job seekers allowance, with a huge number of people going into worklessness and this should be a big priority. Inder Matharu further commented that he was involved with other LSP’s within West London and that working could be sub-regional and not just within Ealing Borough.
Ricky Singh highlighted his agreement to the need to develop a single employment program and the importance of retraining people in order to have a positive impact on people’s lives.
Martin Smith stated that this was something that could be done on a sub-regional level as Ealing’s capacity to do this alone would be limited and it has already been demonstrated that some partners work on a regional basis in this area. Inder Matharu agreed that other Boroughs’ work would become more important to ensure projects synchronised in order to gain maximum impact but that delivery was normally at Borough level.
Robert Creighton questioned why three projects had been chosen and if the LSP’s aspects of the LAA reward grant funding would be spent on these projects. Ann Griffiths and Matthew Booth confirmed that funding would be allocated to the projects if this was considered appropriate at a later date, based on the agreement previously that the LSP should make recommendations to Cabinet on the allocation of a proportion of this funding. However, the resource required and the case for allocation of this to these projects would be considered further and the amount would dependent on the outcome of the scoping exercise.
Resolved:
i)That the detailed scoping and planning of the three projects proposed as priority work for the coming year, the discussions necessary to establish provisional project teams to deliver these projects, and sign off of a practical project start up in January 2011, be agreed;
ii)That the large scale of this work be recognised and the Board commit to ensuring that sufficient buy-in and resources be available through partner organisations to ensure these projects deliver the benefits possible.
- Sustainable Community Strategy Refresh
Emily Inman, Policy Officer, presented the report to the Board and stated that Ealing’s Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) was first approved in 2006 and would run until 2016. It was timely to review the SCS as a lot had changed since the last review was undertaken in 2008.
Emily Inman highlighted the current vision for Ealing was namely “In 2016 Ealing will be a successful borough at the heart of West London, where everyone has the opportunity to prosper and live fulfilling lives in communities that are safe, cohesive and engaged”. Emily asked theBoard if they felt this was still the right vision or if other areas should be focused on.
Emily Inman then outlined three options of what the SCS could be about. Option one was to align the SCS more with the corporate plan, which would be quite simple, as the themes had already been outlined, but not capture so accurately partners’ perspectives. Option two would be a thematic approach, retaining the themes in the current strategy and consulting with partners to pull out key priorities around the areas LSP had prioritised through the LSP Review. Option three would be to go back to basics and do a more substantial re-write, perhaps with pick an overall theme for the strategy, for example, Lambeth had chosen to focus on worklessness. It would also be essential that the refresh have an action plan to deliver the work to achieve our goals as partners; and as it was anticipated this would be a fairly large refresh it was suggested that a workshop session take place in December with partners.