Agenda and minutes

The Minutes of the previous Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee held on 20^th October 2020 were approved as a true record.

(Moved by Councillor S Peaple and seconded by Councillor M Greatorex)

There were no declarations of interest.

The Chair reported that Reset and Recovery meeting had been agreed by Cabinet at its meeting in October 2020, and that the membership included the Chair and another member of this Committee, Councillor S Peaple.

The Chair reminded members that he was aiming to form a working group on the Green Agenda, which he hoped would hold its first meeting before Christmas, and invited members to notify him of topics for inclusion.

(Report of the Portfolio Holder for Regulatory and Community Safety)

The Chair welcomed Councillor S Doyle, the Portfolio Holder for Regulatory and Community Safety, Ms J Sands, the Assistant Director, Partnerships and Ms S Ivey, the Partnership Vulnerability Officer to the meeting who were to provide the first of two biannual safeguarding updates to the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee.

Councillor Doyle introduced Ms Ivey who took the Committee through the Report and highlighted the following:

1.     The safeguarding service had continued to operate throughout the pandemic, and the Partnership Vulnerability Officer had been a point of contact, for staff, as well as statutory and voluntary sector colleagues who required support in relation to safeguarding and vulnerability within the community.

2.     In terms of referrals made through the Council’s reporting procedures, in addition to those set out in the report, since September 2020 there had been a further 8 referrals in respect of adults and 2 in respect of children.

3.     It was confirmed that the planned amalgamation of the Stoke-On-Trent and Staffordshire Safeguarding Children Boards had not proceeded and they remained two separate boards.  However, the Stoke-On-Trent and Staffordshire Adult Safeguarding Partnership Board remained a joint board.  It was reported that the peer-to-peer audit workshop which had been planned had been deferred to the new year due to the pandemic.

4.     In terms of safeguarding training, a significant amount of work had gone into the development of new online e-Learning modules, which were tailored to the Council’s procedures and were expected to support staff and members in making referrals.  Staff roles which required additional training, as well as for the Safeguarding Champions, were being identified and appropriate training would be sourced. Work was underway to review the delivery of taxi driver training in light of Statutory Taxi & Private Hire Vehicle Standards published by the Department for Transport July 2020.

5.     The work of the Multi-Agency Child Exploitation Panel had been broadened and the partnership team worked with other agencies to identify children at risk of exploitation and to have robust processes in place around those identified children.  The Tamworth Vulnerability Partnership continued to meet during the pandemic and continued to work to provide help at the earliest opportunity to improve outcomes for vulnerable people.

6.     It was reported that the Suicide Prevention Procedure was aimed to support staff if they were dealing with a case where a person is threatening suicide and that consultation with staff was underway on its implementation.

The Assistant Director, Partnerships reported that further guidance had recently been issued on the PREVENT agenda which aimed to prevent and safeguard children from being radicalised.  She reported that she would continue to work with the police on this agenda and also to review our procedures to ensure they fully addressed the new guidance and would welcome the opportunity to bring this stream of work to the Committee in the new year.

The Committee thanked the Officers for their work and sought clarifications in the following areas:

1.     The overall picture in terms of vulnerability within Tamworth  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34.

(Update on responses to the Reports of the Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee)

The Chair reported that he had attended Cabinet to provide observations on the Homelessness Strategy report including a suggestion to seek to minimise the use of acronyms and abbreviations to ensure that all reports were accessible. He further reported that Democratic Services had forwarded to all members a copy of the Council’s Housing Solutions Rough Sleeping delivery plan which had been submitted to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in November.

(To receive the Healthy Staffordshire Select Committee update from the meeting on 26^th October 2020 and an update from County Councillor T Clements)

The Chair invited County Councillor T Clements to provide an update to the Committee on the most recent Healthy Staffordshire Select Committee meeting held on 30^th November 2020.

County Councillor Clements reported that this meeting had focussed on a presentation from West Midlands Ambulance Service in respect of Community First Responders.  It was reported that some reconfiguration of the Community First Responders had been considered which would impact on their ability to use emergency blue lights, to administer drugs and to use liveried vehicles.  County Councillor Clements reported that West Midlands Ambulance Service agreed that it would consult with the Community First Responders on the changes and that additionally County Councillors would also feed into that with the work undertaken in local areas by the Community First Responders. 

County Councillor also reported that the Healthy Staffordshire Select Committee had looked at digital inclusion and exclusion and how to roll out the better broadband speeds across the county.

Councillor Faulkner asked whether County Councillor Clements could provide an update on the anticipated net effect of the proposals on the Adult Learning Disability Community Offer referenced in the Digest from the October Healthy Staffordshire Select Committee.

(Update from the Vice-Chair on the working group on Young People)

The Vice-Chair, Councillor P Brindley updated the Committee on the activities of and next steps for the Working Group on Young People comprising himself and Councillors S Peaple and M Greatorex.

He reported that the working group:

1.     would focus on the 11-18 year old age group

2.     had identified three issues on which to focus

3.     had engaged with external stakeholders in the voluntary sector, Staffordshire Police and at Staffordshire County Council

4.     aimed to present a report to the January committee meeting outlining the next steps.

The Chair reported that he had attended a meeting with the headteacher of Tamworth Enterprise College and discussed the possibility of inviting the headteacher to attend a future meeting of the Committee to discuss attainment.

Please see the link to the Forward Plan:

http://democracy.tamworth.gov.uk/mgListPlans.aspx?RPId=120&RD=0&bcr=1

There were no items identified from the Forward Plan for consideration by this Committee.

To consider items for 2020/2021 Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee Work Plan

The Committee considered the Work Plan and agreed to update it as follows:

Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Work Plan