To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies for Absence were received from Councillors ME Cooper, H Davies, B Durkin, AE Gray, MD Lloyd-Hayes, JE Pemberton and GA Powell.

To receive details of any Member nominated to attend the meeting in place of a Member of the Committee.

Councillor AT Oliver was present as a substitute for Councillor H Davies.

To receive any declarations of interest by Members in respect of items on the Agenda.

There were no Declarations of Interest.

To approve and sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 2ndOctober 2009.

RESOLVED: That the Minutes of the Meeting held on 2 October 2009 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To consider suggestions from members of the public on issues the Committee could scrutinise in the future.

There were no suggestions from Members of the Public for issues for future scrutiny.

To receive a report on the Scrutiny Review of the Support to Carers in Herefordshire.

The Committee received the Review of the Support to Carers in Herefordshire.  The Chairman of the Review Group expressed his thanks to the Review Group for all the hard work that had gone into putting this report together and added that he hoped that the Recommendations would help to improve the position of carers in the County.  In the ensuing discussion the following points were raised:

• That paragraph 4.1 of the report stated that the Council received £831.5k in funding from central Government for carers services through the Area-based Grant.  This sum was augmented by a budget of £50k from the Primary Care Trust, and provided funding for the carers’ support system in the County.  This money was allocated solely for the needs of carers.

• That it was important that the Area Based Grant for carers should be protected, as outlined in Recommendation 2.  The County was faced with an ageing population, and support for those who were caring for their spouses and relatives would become increasingly important.

• That as all six Partnership Groups  were covered by the Area Based Grant, consideration might be given to not merely targeting the Health and Well Being Partnership, but also the others that provided both direct and indirect services to carers.

• In reply to a question from a Member regarding what provisions were in place for the cared for if their carer fell ill, the Associate Director of Joint Commissioning said that there were a number of options available to the Council, including placing a temporary carer into the home of the cared for.

• It was noted that whilst personal budget allocations to carers would be an important issue for the future, the Council was having problems in setting a formula for the allocation of points as part of the system.  Whilst work had been done on this issue at local level, on the national level, there was still no set formula from Government.

• That there were now a full team of Carer Assessors in post, and a designated officer was in place to fulfil the role outlined in Recommendation 7 of the report.

The Cabinet Member (Older People & Social Care Adults) said that the Review had been a good and worthwhile exercise, and thanked the Review Group for their work.

RESOLVED:

That:

(a)       the report of the Carers Scrutiny Review Group, in particular its recommendations should be approved and be submitted to Cabinet.

(b)       subject to the Review being approved, the Executive’s response to the Review including an action plan be reported to the first available meeting of the Committee after the Executive had approved its response;

and;

(c)       a further report on progress in response to the Review be made after six months with consideration then being given to the need for any further reports to be made.