Apologies were received from Councillors PL Bettington, PGH Cutter, RC Hunt, and SJ Robertson and from Ms E Lowenstein and Mr P Sell.

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

Councillor GA Powell substituted for Councillor SJ Robertson.

There were none.

To approve and sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 14 September 2012.  (To follow.)

RESOLVED:  That the Minutes of the meeting held on 14 September 2012 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 will be no discussion of the issue at the time when the matter is raised.  Consideration will be given to whether it should form part of the Committee’s work programme when compared with other competing priorities.)

There were none.

To note questions received from the public and the items to which they relate.

(Questions are welcomed for consideration at a Scrutiny Committee meeting so long as the question is directly related to an item listed on the agenda.  If you have a question you would like to ask then please submit it no later than two working days before the meeting to the Committee Officer.  This will help to ensure that an answer can be provided at the meeting). 

There were none.

To consider the findings and proposals of the Phase 1 reviews in the Root and Branch review programme:

·         Older People

·         Customer Services

·         Housing, Economy and Regulatory services

·         Streetscene

The Committee considered in turn  the findings and proposals of each of the Phase 1 reviews in the Root and Branch review programme:  Older People; Customer Services; Housing, Economy and Regulatory Services and Streetscene.

A general observation was made that given the significance of the Root and Branch reviews and their proposals that the Council and partners do things differently, it was essential that the language used in the review reports reflected this.

Older People

A revised version of the report was circulated at the meeting.

The Assistant Director People’s Services Commissioning (ADPSC) presented the report, highlighting that, as set out at paragraphs 18-23 of the revised report, fundamental change to the way the whole Council operated was required, alongside fundamental change to the way in which the Council worked with citizens and partners.  The report identified the need for change in four areas:  diverting demand, improvement and transformation, achieving best value and establishing a sustainable budget.

In discussion the following principal points were made:

·         The ADPSC commented that rather than just focusing on and delivering statutory services consideration needed to be given to ways of diverting demand.

·         The importance of housing policies recognising the needs of the growing numbers of older people in the County was emphasised.

·         Concern was expressed about the findings of some of the benchmarking exercises undertaken that showed Herefordshire was incurring higher costs for some services compared with other authorities.  The Cabinet Member – Health and Wellbeing reported that further analysis of the data was required and was being undertaken.  Members proposed that assurance should be sought that current contracts are delivering value for money and that future contracts are benchmarked to ensure that they too, provide value for money.

·         Concern was expressed about the likelihood of achieving the indicative savings target for adult social care.  It was suggested that paragraph 34 of the report to Cabinet, although it did not state this explicitly, meant that current budget targets for the adult social care budget would not be met. This was a perennial problem.  A realistic, sustainable budget for adult social care needed to be established as a priority.

Customer Services

The Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Corporate Services (DCEx) presented the report.  The review had concluded that whilst the current strategy and model had served the council well, there was now a need to move away from solely a centralised and standardised call management system towards broader contact strategy.  As part of this, service redesign was needed to anticipate and manage demand to prevent service requirements where self-help and signposting is a better option.  The proposals would save money and deliver better outcomes.

In discussion the following principal points were made:

·         That communication needed to be improved.  Members gave examples of a number of difficulties they had personally experienced in obtaining satisfactory responses to enquiries and monitoring progress. 

·         There was a need for clear, well defined communication processes that were followed consistently.  It was important to integrate these communication processes  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47.