A verbal update will be provided.
Minutes:
Agenda Items 8 and 9 were taken together.
The Board received a verbal update on the strategic approach to commissioning being developed at present and considered the report submitted with respect to the Area Based Grant (ABG) end of year review.
The Board was advised that as part of this the Community Strategy, Local Area Agreement targets, value for money and quality of provision were all being considered with a view to improving services.
It was noted that there had been discussions with the Council’s Chief Financial Officer ahead of the anticipated budget reductions that were likely to come into affect from 2010/11 onwards. In order to ensure that services were not hit twice if cuts were made a list had been complied of all of the statutory and non statutory services funded by the ABG. The Chief Financial Officer had been asked to take this into account if a review of funding was undertaken.
At present a review was being undertaken to ensure that the best use of resources was arrived at regardless of the configuration of funding.
It had already been announced that the Supporting People budget would be reduced by £1M in the next financial year. In order to address this deficit a robust review of ninety schemes, which supported a total of nineteen different groups of vulnerable adults, was being undertaken.
The Board was advised that once the Chief Financial Officer had once technical discussions had concluded the Chief Executive’s Management Board, the NHS Board and the HSP Performance Management Group would be briefed.
The Board discussed the verbal update with respect to strategic commissioning and the ABG end of year review.
It was noted that many of the services listed related to non statutory Mental Health services and it was questioned whether the list had been compiled in this way because non statutory services were more likely to be cut. The Board was advised the intention had been to provide the Chief Financial Officer with an overview of the services being provided and that this did not automatically mean that non statutory services were more vulnerable.
The Chair recognised that this information was being used for internal purposes at present but noted that it would be useful to obtain the views of senior officers within NHS Haringey to inform the process. He requested that the Assistant Director, Safeguarding and Adults and the Interim Director of Public liaise with regard to this.
It was clarified that this work was being undertaken as a precautionary measure as it was likely that there would cuts to funding over the next three years. The Council’s Chief Financial Officer would not be taking an individual decision to cut any budgets. The Chair noted that contingency planning was essential and noted that whilst nothing could be agreed at present it was important that all organisations were kept informed of the process being undertaken to avoid confusion and to allow them to plan how they might respond to cuts.
In response to a query as to what services were referred to under the heading ‘culturally appropriate respite’ the Assistant Director, Safeguarding and Adults agreed to obtain more details in relation to this and to advise the Chair of HAVCO outside the meeting.
RESOLVED: