This evening I chaired a meeting of the Housing, Health and Community Care Panel.
You can access the reports we discussed via the Council's website here.
We had a big agenda (partly because scrutiny panels only meet a few times a year and also because the Panel has a very wide remit as you might have guessed!) but the subjects covered were really interesting. I would like to thank all those who contributed to the meeting.
I spent some considerable time preparing for the meeting and discussed with a range of people involved ways in which scrutiny could add value.
Like a stuck record you could say, I made the point again tonight that I think it's very important that as a Council we move away from 'rubber stamping' reports and providing leadership and challenge to officers to lead to better services for residents of the Borough - otherwise, what are we there for?
Over the past few years, one Party rule in Reading has led to a culture where to put it politely, overview has been given more weight than scrutiny in overview & scrutiny committees.
It's up to individual members to take the initiative, in my view and I hope that's what I have done. Certainly not all members are engaged in scrutiny, but, there isn't much I can do about that.
Some personal highlights from the meeting:
- Recommendations to Cabinet on improving residential care services in the Borough (including Edward Hughes care home) were agreed by the Panel following the public meeting I chaired on the subject in January. This issue was referred to Scrutiny back in September and will hopefully be agreed by Cabinet on 16 March.
- Following the scrutiny review into private rented housing in Reading, we agreed a good set of positive recommendations to Cabinet covering a range of areas. The proposals were also endorsed by the Environment Scrutiny Panel at its meeting on Tuesday evening. I'll blog the details soon. A report on the public consultation event highlighted the high level of public participation (including tenants, students and landlords) - over 74 comments received, with a number of comments received via the web too.
- Discussed a report on tenant participation agenda with tenants and officers- very positive and helping to make Council services more responsive to local people. I praised the Hexham estate improvement consultation as a great example of tenant involvement. Clearly more work to be done to ensure the voices of younger tenants and tenants from private sector are heard. We have asked for an update report to come to the Panel on this aspect.
- Investigated the impact of the credit crunch on housing in Reading.It felt like a long time since we discussed the issue last Summer when very few Councils were discussing this. I will blog more about this next week -the early signs seem to show Reading is coping well (number of homeless people has not increased, but clearly we need to monitor the situation.
The Council's deposit guarantee scheme is playing a key role in making sure people don't lose their homes. I raised concerns once again about risks to tenants and landlords in private rented sector. An update report is coming to the next meeting. We have also asked for a review of debt advice service as this is key to helping residents.
- Empty homes update: following my successful campaign to get the Council to adopt an empty homes strategy now we need to make sure things happen. We finally have a strategy and officer dedicated to this area. However, the report showed there are still hundreds of homes in the Borough lying empty and a concerted effort is needed to get them back into use. We agreed a set of recommendations to Cabinet calling for action. Some other interesting stuff which I'll blog next week.
- Admission of minors into adult mental health wards: I blogged about the background to this last week. Update from the Primary Care Trust suggested officers are some way from agreeing a cross-Berkshire commissioning solution. I rrequested an update to the next meeting to ensure that this issue remains on the agenda of local health bodies. Good to see Paul Farmer in attendance (although doubtless he will be disappointed this issue has not been resolved)
- CSCI inspection; Following the critical inspection report published last year, the action plan we requested at the December Panel meeting showed officers are now clearly focused on areas identified of weakness in the Community Care service which was encouraging. We thanked officers and requested update reports to future meetings on areas where further improvement is still needed.
- Received the not such good news that plans for a Battle 'Health and Well-being centre' and a long-awaited Whitley health centre are both delayed due to the credit crunch. On a positive note, the town centre 'GP led health centre' is on track to be opened later this year, to improve access to health care to residents living and working in the centre of town
- Discussed NHS dentistry with representatives from the PCT. Figures in the report showed that too many people in Reading still don't know that there are NHS dentists they can access . I highlighted concerns about rates of tooth decay amongst children which we raised in the scrutiny review into children's health last week and called for joint action by the Council and health bodies to increase awareness amongst parents.
These are only some of the issues we discussed at the meeting (we had almost 20 items on the agenda!). However, I haven't got time to cover them all as I'm off to Lib Dem Conference this weekend.
However, I will be revisiting these campaigns and issues here over the coming days and weeks.
You got a nice agenda it because scrutiny panels only meet a few times a year and also because the Panel has a very wide remit as you might have guessed! And i agree that the subjects covered were really interesting.
by: florence
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