Agenda and minutes

1.1       The minutes were agreed as a correct record.

2.1       Apologies were received from Cllr Sheppard (Cllr Belsey substituted) and Cllr Enever.

Disclosures by all members present of personal interests in matters on the agenda, the nature of any interest and whether the member regards the interest as prejudicial under the terms of the Code of Conduct.

3.1       Cllr Ungar declared a personal, non-prejudicial interest as Joint Chair of the Eastbourne and Lewes Community Safety Partnership.

3.2       Cllr Webb declared a personal, non-prejudicial interest as Chair of a Community Safety Panel in central St Leonards.

3.3       Cllr Clarke declared a personal, non-prejudicial interest as Trustee and Director of the Hastings Centre which hosted a community safety event mentioned in a report to the committee.

Notification of items which the Chair considers to be urgent and proposes to take at the appropriate part of the agenda. Any members who wish to raise urgent items are asked, wherever possible, to notify the Chair before the start of the meeting. In so doing, they must state the special circumstances which they consider justify the matter being considered urgent.

4.1       There were no urgent items.

The latest edition of the Forward Plan.The Committee is asked to make comments or request further information.

5.1       The Committee RESOLVED to note the forward plan.

6.1       The Head of Safer Communities introduced the report which provided an overview of community safety performance in 2016-17 and partnership priorities for 2017-18. She advised that a partnership event was planned for later in June to review and refresh priorities for future years.

6.2       The following points were made in response to questions from the committee:

Crime reporting

·         Sussex Police has advised that upward trends in some categories of crime reflect an increase in reporting, rather than being indicative of an increase in crime. The accuracy of figures is a question which can be taken up by the Police and Crime Panel which will be receiving a report on changes to reporting arrangements.

Prevent programme

·         The effectiveness of the Prevent programme is considered by the Prevent Board. Evidence seen by the Board suggests that interventions across schools and colleges have been very successful and these have been subject to independent evaluation.

·         The partnership secured Home Office funding for the ‘Think, Protect, Prevent’ programme (particularly focused on children with autism) which will be fully evaluated by the end of June but has been successful in terms of people completing the programme. A small number of referrals (fewer than five in the last 12 months) have been made to the national Channel intervention programme where there were specific concerns.

·         Partners are confident in the ability to identify concerns about young people through work in schools and colleges, and to make appropriate referrals to Channel.

·         The Prevent programme has been reviewed in light of the Sussex Counter Terrorism Local Profile and has had positive feedback. There is an ongoing focus on vulnerable young people who may be subject to influence rather than people from a particular background or faith.

·         There has been no specific new guidance on Prevent in light of recent terrorist attacks but the temporary increase of the threat level to critical affected the local authority response. After the Manchester attack the partnership proactively provided a presentation to local schools to help them talk about the issues as they felt appropriate.

Drug and alcohol misuse

·         There has been a positive impact from introducing community detox as an alternative to the residential service. There is no cap on the number of people able to access the service. As there is a very low level of representation once people complete the programme (80% stay clean) most are new attenders. There is an increasing need but also the capacity to manage it.

·         A reduction in drug paraphernalia left in public places is expected following a meeting with the pharmacy council which has now agreed to supply single needles rather than larger packs which lead to surplus needles being left unopened and abandoned.

Domestic abuse

·         The increase in referrals to Multi-agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs) is linked to increased staff training and they are under pressure. Work is being undertaken in conjunction with the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) to review the capacity of MARACs across Sussex and officers are confident that changes will  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.1       The Director of Adult Social Care and Health introduced the report. The following points were made in response to questions from the committee:

·         The East Sussex Better Together (ESBT) outcomes framework was developed based on the key statutory requirements of each organisation and what local people have said is important in their lives. These elements have been drawn together into the key areas ESBT is looking to address. The pilot framework has been shared with stakeholders and a single performance system is being developed to manage and monitor it.

·         The intention is to develop more detailed performance indicators against each of the outcomes to measure delivery. The framework is made up of a mix of indicators based on actual data about the delivery of services and perception indicators, which reflect requirements in the national NHS and Adult Social Care Outcomes Frameworks to ask people about felt experience. Some other measures will be subject to multi-agency case audit.

·         The options appraisal process reflects the principles agreed by Cabinet which have been converted to a scoring framework. Representatives of all ESBT Alliance organisations will form part of a panel which will score options, aiming to achieve a consensus view. Sovereign bodies will ultimately decide on the way forward based on the panel’s recommendation.

·         The NHS wants and needs to transform services in a similar way to social care. Health services are also experiencing pressures and need to reduce demand by focusing on prevention. Spending more on social care can reduce demand on acute care and there are benefits to all by working as a whole system and looking at how the collective health and social care budget is spent.

·         There is a need to retain democratic accountability and management of performance in any new governance structure. ESBT Alliance governance is currently complex due to the mix of old and new, but ultimately the aim is to simplify how health and social care are commissioned and delivered. NHS regulation also needs to adapt to new ways of working.

·         Staff have been engaged through the normal engagement processes within individual organisations but additional mechanisms have been added specifically in relation to ESBT issues such as the changes to service models.

·         Staff are aware of potentially large scale change and if there is organisational change the usual policies will apply. Staff have already experienced significant change due to the service changes implemented to date through ESBT.

·         Following the options appraisal process there will be a public report to Cabinet in July setting out the proposed way forward. This will be followed by a further round of staff engagement to explain the next steps.

·         The ESBT Scrutiny Board has enabled scrutiny at each stage of the process and this will continue. Further thought would be needed as to how scrutiny would operate in a full accountable care system.

7.2       RESOLVED to note the report.

8.1       RESOLVED:

1.    To nominate Cllrs Davies, Webb and Clarke as the committee’s representatives on the East Sussex Better Together and Connecting 4 You Scrutiny Boards.

2.    To add the following items to the work programme:

14 September:

·         Safeguarding report – to include the issue of paid carers and safeguarding

·         Market capacity report – home care and nursing care homes

16 November:

·         Mental health – overview of community services (covering support to the homeless)

·         Services to prisons (post Care Act)

15 March:

·         Health and Social Care Connect update report