Agenda item

Questioner:

Jackie Hooper

Asked of:

Councillor Barry Macleod-Cullinane, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Adults and Housing

Question:

“Employment for people experiencing mental health problems is a stated priority of Harrow’s Health & Well-being Strategy and therefore what supported permitted work opportunities does Harrow Council offer for mental health service users?”

[Note: Supported Permitted Work is a DWP approved scheme allowing people in receipt of welfare benefits to work and earn income.]

Answer:

Harrow is one of the most important, high performing boroughs when it comes to stated employment for people with severe mental health and health issues.  The borough offers a range of options directly and through its partners and contracted providers.

Wiseworks, in particular, offers people work experience, sometimes through permitted earnings and provides a range of personalised support to helping people to access the work and to develop the workplace skills.  There are central Council services also working in this area in addition to Wiseworks and we have also been working with Wiseworks and helping to secure Lottery funding to further employment and support services.

The Council is providing some funding for your own organisation, Mind in Harrow, which I think is important and we are trying to work with other third sector organisations, Rethink Mental Illness, along with Hug and various others. 

CNWL also runs activities, so we are trying to open up the door and to take it seriously.  It is an important area and one that we want to make sure that we are getting right, rather than getting wrong and neglecting, as it tended to be forgotten too often in the past.  So we want to take it forward and try to see what we can do and to improve things.

Supplemental Question:

How does the Council offer advice and support for mental health service users when they apply for permitted support work that complied with the DWP and rules?

Supplemental Answer:

Currently the Council is looking to work with the sector to try and find out how it can better provide that support.

Now, I am not a particular expert on that element of support but I have been talking to Raksha Pandya, the next questioner.  We are going to set up a meeting to go through and perhaps we can include that as a part of the discussion: to make sure that we have offers there to take you through and then figure out, not just explain to you but also seeing what we can do to communicate to Mind, to the other organisations within Harrow how it is that we are working and how we could perhaps improve.  Perhaps we can actually sit down with you and the other organisations to ensure that what we want to do is the right thing and that it is addressing your needs correctly, rather than what we think are the needs. 

I am not an expert on that particular element of it but I think if we take it forward in that way, we can ensure that we do what is right and, with our limited funding, we make sure it goes as far as possible, rather than simply putting it where we perhaps otherwise ought not to be doing, rather than hitting the things that we should be doing. 

Questioner:

RakshaPandya, MIND in Harrow

Asked of:

Councillor Barry Macleod-Cullinane, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Adults and Housing

Question:

What has been the progress of the Harrow Council commissioned NDTi Mental Health Personalisation Project in terms of the number of people who have engaged with project to date compared to their contracted targets?

Answer:

So far NDTi have consulted something like 42 people to date.  There is not actually a target for numbers of people to consult, what we have been asking is not to set up targets for them in the contract and this is what Mind bid for initially as well, but we said we did not actually want targets. We did not want to have output.  What we wanted to do is to achieve outcomes and so the contract was specified about improving a number of different elements: 

·                     Firstly, to ensure that the experience and outcomes of people who have got mental health issues and mental health concerns are improved.

·                     Secondly, to make sure that their accessing of Harrow social care is improved.

·                     Thirdly, to ensure that their personal budgets have been accurately and efficiently assessed, allocated and supported so that they are getting the support that they are due in the right way and getting the right things that they need to go forward.

·                     Fourthly, we are also looking to make sure that learning is gathered through this sort of process about the services that people wish to buy through greater, and more extension of, personalisation.

·                     Finally, there is an improved understanding, we hope, of personalisation and the self directed support amongst our mental health professionals in the area.  So we want to widen that element out including the care co-ordinators and consultant psychiatrists.

So those are really much the substance of the contract.  Rather than actually total numbers of people to consult with, it is actually trying to make sure that we are consulting the right people. 

Now I think that 42 is perhaps on the lower side and I think we ought to be trying to raise it up and I am asking officers to actually make sure that that is followed up and checked on.   We do need to push them to widen that pool because whilst it is not chasing numbers, it actually improves the quality of the work, if you have a larger pool of people that you have drawn from.  So I share your concern on that.

Supplemental Question:

I am disappointed to have to ask this as a supplementary.

At 17 October Cabinet meeting, we asked you about the total contract value of the project paid to NDTi to date and the current cost to Harrow for each person consulted and asked you, as a Portfolio Holder, do you regard these as good value for money.  You replied “I do not have that data to hand and will get back to you in the next few days”.  Why has this not happened and you proposed to meet with Mind?  Will you commit a time to do this?

Supplemental Answer:

My apologies, and that will not happen again. Secondly, yes I will commit to find the time and I promise to call you in the morning to set up said time and am happy to try to arrange that next week so that we can go through these details. In terms of the amount, I do not have that to hand, that particular figure.  Sorry.

Questioner:

Mr M Talukder

Asked of:

Councillor Susan Hall, Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Environment

Question:

“Can you please explain why you have implemented a caveat on a political decision when you were the opposition party this relates to the decision to overturn Parks locking; the caveat you unilaterally placed on this service, is only funding for 2013/14 which was not part of the political decision to reinstate this service?”

Written Answer:

(Questioner was not present at the meeting)

The original decision to cease the parks locking service as part of the 2013/14 budget was subsequently reversed by Cabinet in September of this year. Our administration then sourced the funding to allow the service to continue in its current format for the remainder of 2013/14, allowing sufficient time for the service to review operational requirements to most efficiently deliver the service in the future.

Although there is still pressure to realise the savings within the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) which we inherited, you will note from our draft budget that we have committed to the future of the service by finding additional funding for it for 2014/15.

Questioner:

Mr Davis Searles

Asked of:

Councillor Susan Hall, Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Environment

Question:

“You state that your administration has implemented and supports a fairer Council; can you please explain why operational staff at Central Depot does not receive training especially when Agency staff across the Council are lawfully entitled thus receiving more beneficial employment opportunities against those that have been directly employed in the Council for more than TEN Years thus substantially disadvantaging staff in obtaining redeployment opportunities.”

Answer:

This is not the case.  We continue to train operational staff in areas related to their job roles, specific service needs and further development.

Whilst this training is carefully controlled to meet budget and service needs, it also supports development of staff enabling them to progress as opportunities arise.  Positions are filled on a fair basis in accordance with the Council’s Employment Policies which seek to minimise redundancies and directly employed staff are given priority consideration for redeployment.

Recent and current examples of training for operational staff at the Depot include:

·                     training of refuse loaders on driving large goods vehicles;

·                     training for drivers to increase or maintain their licence level;

·                     sports grounds maintenance;

·                     1^st line supervisor training to drivers;

·                     national vocational training in management techniques.

Additional to that, I often used to go down to the Depot for staff meetings and we were constantly giving out certification to members of staff for different training that they had undertaken and they were all receiving these certificates.  So I do not recognise your comments.

Supplemental Question:

Can you please explain why the administration is misleading the residents stating that the administration will protect front line staff, yet in reality the front line staff have taken the brunt of staffing reductions? 

The facts are that approximately 36+ front line operational positions are to be cut while management positions are to be cut by a diminutive amount, when compared to the front line.  This is in the Towards Excellent programme which you directly intervened into.

Supplemental Answer:

I asked many questions about that because anybody that knows knows that I was not happy with PRISM.  I have made my thoughts on PRISM very clear.  I do not recognise what you are saying about the front line staff going and I have asked numerous people to make sure that our front line is being invested in.  A sum of £500,000 has gone into front line services and we are hoping to put that money through on the budget for next year.  There are so many more people working on the front line as is evidenced by residents telling me that they can see so many more people on the front line.  It was not this administration that removed money from front line services and that is a fact.

MrSearles:

With all due respect Councillor, the additional staff that we are seeing out on the street are agency staff.  As part of this project we are going to lose 24 grounds maintenance, 12 refuse staff and 3 park keepers.  Now these are areas which you profess in the press to be of high importance to you but the figures do not play that out.  We have agency staff now, we have been understaffed and we are now losing more staff – 24 from grounds maintenance, 12 from refuse and 3 park keepers.

Cllr Hall:

Refuse may well be because of route optimisation which is not being done at the moment.  I am quite happy to have a meeting with you to discuss these issues separately but in reality, this administration has put a great deal of money into front line services.

Thank you for your questions.

Questioner:

Mrs J Lawrence-Ricketts

Asked of:

Councillor Kamaljit Chana, Portfolio Holder for Business and Enterprise

Question:

“Can you tell me what activities were promoted in Harrow by Harrow Council on the “Small Business Saturday” last week to help local traders and reinforce the benefits of local trading?”

Answer:

Thank you for your question.

Small Business Saturday took place on 7 December.  This was a national event backed by the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills, and the Department for Communities and Local Government and promoted by the business community, including the Federation of Small Businesses.  The Council works with the West London branch of the Federation of Small Businesses and took a role in promoting Small Business Saturday to both traders and residents, including distribution of a pack of information for businesses, which were received on 26 November and distributed the following day.

Activities undertaken by Harrow Council included:

·                     General support to the campaign through press releases, newsletters, and social media.  This comprised of:

-           dedicated web page promoting the day and encourage businesses to take part;

-           press releases to highlight campaign and  commitment by Harrow Council;

-           articles in the electronic Business newsletter sent to over 1,000 local businesses registered on the Business Directory; and also

·                     Information promoting campaign sent to local businesses

-            online to Harrow in Business and North West London Chamber of Commerce;

-            information packs were dropped off to Traders Association representatives (this in Pinner, Stanmore, North Harrow, Hatch End and so on)  to encourage them to promote this amongst their members to get involved.  Those interested in taking part were signposted to the campaign organisers;

-            the Federation of Small Businesses advised that packs were distributed to traders on the High Road in Harrow Weald.

Mrs Lawrence-Ricketts:

That all sounds well and good but nothing was done in Wealdstone.  My business is in Wealdstone.  It is in the In Shops and they will be closing down and several other traders have lost their livelihood. 

I have also noticed that you have made a statement in the Harrow Observer that you are helping us and you have never been to the In Shops and we have never met you.  So I was quite shocked to see that statement in the press.

Cllr Chana:

Can I come back to you on that point?

Our Head of Economic Development has written to the In Shops for them to reconsider closure.  The department has met with, have had 4 meetings with In Shops and in fact, they take the lead because in fact the officers are the full time staff that are able to advise on In Shop. 

I have had a letter from your Chairman.  I have spoken to him on the phone twice.  I have spoken with him.  So I dispute the fact that I have not been in contact. 

I am leaving the actual advice with the Economic Development team and I am quite confident in them and the work that they are doing to support the In Shops. 

So we are actively trying to support but it is an issue between the landlord and the tenants.