Agenda and minutes

Cllrs P Bright and C Townsend.

None.

The minutes of the previous meeting held 24^th January 2023 were accepted as a true and accurate record.

The report was presented by the Strategic Director for Social Services and the Head of Prevention and Inclusion.

Questions:

The Committee thanked the Officers for their hard work. The committee asked what facilities would be needed over the coming years to help aid programmes and staffing.

·       The Head of Prevention and Inclusion noted that the Service Plan covers the immediate short-term areas of focus. The Head of Prevention and Inclusion noted that there was a key focus on the quality of interventions provided as well as the quality of the workforce. The Head of Prevention and Inclusion informed committee that most of the work carried out takes place in service users’ homes and noted that they had key working relationships with schools. The Head of Prevention and Inclusion noted the only building provision they need currently is for Flying Start. The Head of Prevention and Inclusion highlighted the importance of using the spaces they already have available.

·       The Head of Prevention and Inclusion informed committee that the focus in the next five years would be on growing core services and partnerships but that they were working with Housing and Communities to identify and make use of community facilities where necessary.

·       The Strategic Director noted the focus on working in partnership was to ensure that all services provided to people work effectively. The Strategic Director noted that the council doesn’t provide every service to a person.

The Committee asked whether they had an idea of what spaces would be beneficial to the service in the future, such as soft play areas and green spaces etc to work with service users.

·       The Strategic Director noted that the place that used held less importance than the quality of the staff and therefore the focus should reflect that.

The Committee asked whether the Governance Board included representation from Trade Unions and how much input the Trade Unions have had on the recommissioning programme.

·       The Strategic Director informed committee that they established an internal for Newport Board which works with various representatives to have oversight of the budget, services, and the recommissioning of the Families First service. The Strategic Director noted that due to its nature, it is an internal Officer’s Board and therefore Trade Unions aren’t represented on it.

·       The Strategic Director noted that the recommissioning of the Families First service had been completed. The Strategic Director clarified that the impact on staffing was not an internal issue but instead an issue around commissioned services and Union representation would’ve been with their own organisations and Unions linked to them.

The Committee asked how the service had been affected with difficulties recruiting qualified staff.

·       The Head of Prevention and Inclusion noted that recruitment was an issue impacting all services and that a key focus was on providing training and development from within. The Head of Prevention and Inclusion noted that there was working being undertaken to upskill current staff and expand their breadth of knowledge.

The Committee welcomed the work that the team and detailed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Following the completion of the Committee reports, the Committee will be asked to formalise its conclusions, recommendations and comments on previous items for actioning.

There were no comments or recommendations due to the session being information only.

a)      Forward Work Programme Update (Appendix 1)

b)      Actions Arising (Appendix 2)

The Scrutiny Advisor informed committee that there had been a request to alter the work programme, whereby a report would go the meeting scheduled for the 28^th March 2023 instead of the 14^th March 2023.

This was agreed by the Committee.

The date of the next meeting would be the 14^th March 2023 at 10am.

You can watch the Live Event by clicking here.

The recording of the meeting can be watched here.