Agenda, decisions and draft minutes

To receive apologies for absence from committee members.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Henry Batchelor and Andrew Fraser.

There were no declarations of interest.

To authorise the Chairman to sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 21^st April 2017 as a correct record.

The minutes of the meeting held on 21^st April 2017, were agreed as a correct record.

There were no public questions.

For the committee to consider and agree recommendations to be forwarded to Cabinet for their consideration.

Subject to amendments to recommendations one and five, the Partnerships Review Committee AGREED the following recommendations and  RECOMMENDED their agreement by Cabinet:

Recommendation 1 - That the Council pro-actively uses its networks and facilitation skills to enable appropriately timed meetings between key partners to:

a)    help develop relationships and trust between professionals working to support children and young people who are experiencing poor mental health, and

b)       enable strong partnerships resulting in a better support offer for children and young people within a school setting.

Recommendation 2 - That the Council:

a)    writes to NHS England expressing concern in relation to the targets they set for mental health crisis care, which results in local budgets being spent once a crisis has occurred rather than preventing the crisis in the first place, and

b)    instructs officers to actively pursue, through Devolution 2, a freedom and flexibility to agree locally the split between spend on preventative care and crisis care in relation to mental health.

Recommendation 3 - That the Council uses its position with the Mayor, local Members of Parliament and on key local partnerships to influence decisions that affect local and national spend on mental health services so that more is done to support children and young people who are experiencing poor mental health so that they hopefully do not reach crisis.

Recommendation 4 - That the Council, through the Corporate Plan, prioritises supporting young people who are experiencing poor mental health, especially during times of crisis.

Recommendation 5 - That Cabinet notes the success of the Allyance model in the South-West of the district and explores the rollout of this, or a similar model, across all South Cambridgeshire schools.

The Head of Sustainable Communities and Wellbeing presented the report which outlined the committee’s findings with regard to children and adolescent mental health services. The report presented five recommendations for consideration which, subject to the committee’s agreement, would be forwarded to Cabinet for their consideration.

The Chairman thanked officers and the Vice Chairman for their work on the last committee meeting and on the report, also highlighting the relevance of this work to the Council’s Corporate Plan.

The committee discussed the report and recommendations:

·         Concern was raised regarding the source of the data presented in paragraph 12 of the report. The Head of Sustainable Communities and Wellbeing informed the committee that these were national statistics that had been quoted by the Deputy Head of Swavesey Village College. The evidence source would be double checked and local statistics would be included if possible.

·         Statistics in paragraph 14 of the report were also queried. The Head of Sustainable Communities and Wellbeing clarified that these were Public Health statistics, which used recognised evidence sources. The original source of the evidence would be quoted.

·         It was suggested that these recommendations be taken to the external attendees of the last committee meeting, before they were presented to Cabinet.

·         Concern was raised regarding the amount of funding and officer time proposed in recommendations one to five. It was felt that this would not be enough to make a difference. The Head of Sustainable Communities and Wellbeing assured the committee that small amounts of funding would make a significant difference as the Council’s role would be to coordinate delivery of services.

·         The committee was informed that schools put funding into the fully trained counsellor under the Allyance model.

·         It was advised that from a school’s perspective, implementing recommendation five would make a significant difference. Recommendation five and one were linked and by implementing recommendation five, recommendation one was also implemented. The Head of Sustainable Communities and Wellbeing advised that the Council already brought partners together through the Local Health Partnership and that the Allyance model would be of huge benefit to the county.

·         It would be clarified in the report whether schools listed in paragraph 21 were primary or secondary schools.

·         It was advised that the role of public health and mental health in the second devolution deal should not be forgotten.

·         It was suggested that neighbouring authorities should be involved in this work.

Next steps agreed were:

·         The Head of Sustainable Communities and Wellbeing would look at the funding required, based on how recommendations one and five interlinked.

·         The recommendations would be shown to the representatives who had attended the April committee meeting.

·         Recommendations would be presented to Cabinet at its September 2017 meeting if possible.

Councillor Manning proposed that recommendations one to five be agreed subject to changes being made to recommendations one and five. Councillor Orgee seconded the motion and the committee unanimously voted in favour of this.

Subject to amendments to recommendations one and five, the Partnerships Review Committee therefore AGREED the following  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

No updates have been received.

No updates from Members representing the Council on outside bodies were received.

For the committee to consider its next topic for scrutiny.

The committee discussed what it might like to scrutinise in future:

·         It was proposed that the committee look at Shared Services, however it was pointed out that the Scrutiny and Overview Committee was looking at this on an ongoing basis already.

·         It was proposed that the two South Cambridgeshire representatives on the Combined Authority’s Scrutiny Committee attend the next Partnerships Review Committee meeting, to discuss the Combined Authority and Devolution. The committee also wanted to ask the Mayor to attend the next meeting.

·         Committee members were also interested in the following:

o   Inviting the Police and Crime Commissioner to a future meeting.

o   The Greater Cambridge Partnership.