Agenda and minutes

None

Invitees;

-          Rhys Cornwall (Head of People and Business Change)

The minutes of the Meeting held on 10 January 2018 were considered, and a verbal update was provided from the Head of People and Business Change. At the previous meeting, Members had requested feedback on the partnership work in Pill, specifically the approach the partnership had used to identify issues and need for this area, the work that had been undertaken to provide solutions and whether it would be a suitable approach to use for other areas.

The Officer advised the Committee that The Pill work is reported through the Single Integrated Plan monitoring that Scrutiny receive.   And in the new draft Wellbeing Plan, there is a proposed intervention of ‘Strong Resilient Communities’  Developing a place based approach with local communities that consider the long term needs alongside the short term needs and assets of that community. Working in collaboration with the community and a range of organisations. Identifying assets and needs and empowering local people to lead and develop their local community. Under this intervention, the PSB would anticipate the development of a place based approach as described.

The Committee thanked the Officer for providing the update.

Agreed:

The minutes of the Meeting held on 10 January 2018 were approved as an accurate record of the meeting.

The Chair advised the Committee that due to the weather conditions, the EAS representative was unable to make the meeting, so the item would be postponed. Due to the Committees comments being reported to the Cabinet meeting on 14 March, the Committee would need to meet within the next week. The Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer would advise the Committee of the date as soon as possible.

Invitees:

-          Mary Ryan – Corporate Safeguarding Manager

-          Sally Jenkins – Head of Children & Young People Services

-          James Harris – Strategic Director - People

The Head of Children & Young People Services presented an overview of the Strategy to the Committee, and advised that Newport were the lead authority in Gwent for this work, and had been since 2015. The Corporate Safeguarding Manager was responsible for the team in Llamau, and who had received a high amount of praise from the number of initiatives run. Regional work was an enormous challenge with the competing demands, the number of providers and sectors however there was excellent work being undertaken.

The strategy was in draft form, the timeframe had been amended to 2018-23 in line with the Wellbeing plan, as this would be monitored as one of the elements within the plan.

A full list of the Partnership Board Members were included within the report, and included the 5 local authorities, the Police, Health Boards and a number of other organisations. From the beginning there had been consultation with survivors which had helped develop the strategy. In November 2017, the partners hosted the first All Wales conference which launched the strategy for consultation.

Training had been organised in different ways, via online training for staff and face to face training with professionals and organisations. Focus groups had been used to look into and gather information on specific areas. The Officer acknowledged that a weakness within the strategy was the low consultation rates in male survivors; there was a work plan in place to address this.

The Members asked the following:

·           Members commended the intentions of the initiative of the plan, and asked how success would be measured. Some success would be measureable, there was currently a training pilot being run making sure that all professionals have the awareness and skills how to ask the right questions. The measure was of the experience of those who come through the service being better supported, and the team were better able to ensure that people can stay safety in their homes. There was a need to be aware that figures on reporting would likely increase in the first instance, but in the long term (10 to 15 years) success would be measured through a decrease in this figure. The more professionals that undertook the training, and were more able to ask the right questions and have the right skills to properly respond in situations of domestic abuse. Many of the outcomes mirrored those for the Social Services and Wellbeing Plan

·           The evidence base and context provided within the report was commended.

·           Were the Partners confident that there were sufficient resources to implement the Strategy? The partnership had funding for the team to develop sub groups however this funding would cease at the end of March 2019. The Partnerships was aware that there were resource implications which would need to be worked through.

·           The Head of Service advised that although this is an area  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Forward Work Programme Update

The Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer presented the Forward Work Programme to the Committee in particular the items scheduled for the next two meetings.

Agreed:

The Committee endorsed the proposed schedule for the next two Committee meetings and confirmed the topics to be considered.

The Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer agreed to circulate the material from the training session on SRS that the Committee undertook in September prior to the next meeting.

The Committee discussed and evaluated the meeting in terms on the content of the reports on the agenda and how the meeting was conducted. Members agreed that it had been helpful to gain an overview of the issues surrounding domestic abuse, and commended the Authority for taking the lead in this area.

In terms of numbers of items on the agenda, the Committee commented that if the EAS item had not been postponed the meeting would have been too long, as they were both large items that warranted time and attention. It was confirmed that where possible, the number of agenda items would be kept as low as possible to allow the Committee sufficient time to undertake their role effectively.