Meeting documents

The Chairman will allow members of the public to ask a question or make a statement about any matter on the agenda for this meeting. These questions may be taken during the meeting, when the relevant agenda item is considered, at the Chairman’s discretion.  

Nigel Behan, Unite Branch Secretary

Q1 Can an updated financial profile be provided which supersedes the attached one from 2016?

Response

Thank you for your continued interest. As there are no significant changes and the Authority is not looking to produce a new business case there is no requirement to have an updated financial profile.

Q2 In light of the updated information in the report - will SCC produce a new version of the Business Case including year 1 and year 2 information and will you publicise it?

Response

As indicated in the previous response. The Authority have no reason to produce a new business case.

Nick Batho, Discovery Stakeholder Group

The Stakeholder group has a number of detailed questions arising from this report. Most of these can addressed at our next engagement meeting on Monday, but there are a few issues Scrutiny might want to explore now.

The first is the question of days lost to sickness. A high number of days lost to sickness must be linked to a high use of agency staff, something I think we all agree should be avoided. The scorecard shows Discovery staff are consistently above the national average for days lost so I wonder if we might explore why that is and ask for details of the remedial action Discovery has in place to bring these days lost down.

Response

Sickness rates are monitored, and appropriate action is taken. This will be discussed at the next stakeholder meeting.

The second is to ask for confirmation that arrangements are in place to repeat the Customer and Parent/Carer satisfaction and "well being" surveys, which are called for on an annual basis in the contract at PI 33.

Response

Yes, arrangements are in place and these surveys are being undertaken.

And finally, can we have a report against PI 34 which concerns choice and control and asks for the numbers of people with LD who recruit their own staff, choose their support for each activity, have a personalised rota, and how many have a personalised budget, an individual service fund or a direct payment.

Response

Yes you can have a report against PI 34 and Outcome based Performance Indicators.

As a general point we reiterate our previous comments about the importance of Outcome Based performance indicators which are the only way to really judge what effect Discovery’s Support is having on people’s lives.

Before you can have Outcome Based performance indicators you must know what outcomes you are trying to deliver. For individual Customers, and that’s all LD customers in Somerset, this is done through an up to date careplan.  The careplan should identify the customers eligible needs. The Local Authority should commission the outcomes (listed in the care plan) that will guide a Provider to address these needs.

We can see from the report that good progress appears to have been made towards achieving a care plan for all Discovery customers.  The next and crucial step is the care plan must be backed up by a Provider written Support Plan which shows what activities Discovery, and all other providers, are going to deliver in order for customers to achieve their outcomes.

The Stakeholder group welcomes Commissioners intentions to report on the uptake of provider Support Plans. We would like to see Scrutiny ask for a specific update both now and in say 6 months time, and ask that this report also includes progress on setting up Outcome Based performance indicators for all LD Providers in Somerset.

Response

Agreed.