Issue - items at meetings - Summary of OSC Intelligent Commissioning Workshop held on 7 December 2010

Report of the Strategic Director Resources

76.1 The Strategic Director Communities introduced the report on the feedback from the three scrutiny workshops. The outcome of the Intelligent Commissioning Pilot on Domestic Violence was being taken to the 7 April Cabinet; the remaining two – Drug-Related Deaths and Alcohol-related Harm -  would go to future Cabinet meetings.

76.2 He thanked Members of Overview and Scrutiny Commission for their valuable input to the workshops, which had been very useful in informing the reports for Cabinet.

76.3 The Chairman Councillor Gill Mitchell thanked those who took part. The workshops had demonstrated the intelligent commissioning process well in three complex areas of work; from the detailed needs analyses to the recommendations built upon them.

76.4 Members commented that the three subject areas had been particularly demanding and gave insight to the nature and scale of the challenges facing the City. They remarked on the large amount of research that had been done for each pilot.

76.5 Having participated in the pilot workshops, they felt this approach had worked well and provided a good basis for targeted scrutiny of other service areas for the future.

76.6 The Strategic Director commented that combining evidence and experience in the workshops provided a chance for helpful dialogue. Members were able to comment on the areas they were most concerned about and where the most difference can be made. The pilots had indicated that future needs assessments should take less time, however analysing the potential outcomes needed more time.

76.7 Replying to questions the Strategic Director said these three subjects were particularly complex but so were many others that had a big impact on the City, for example in youth, adult and older peoples’ services. A commissioning calendar was being prepared which would include a mix of large cross-cutting services as well as more specific shorter pieces of work within tighter timescales. A library of intelligent commissioning outcomes would enable easy cross-referencing of links between services.

76.8 RESOLVED;  that OSC comments and feedback from the workshops be referred to 7 April Cabinet.

Verbal Update

61.1 The Commissioner Community Safety noted that the three Intelligent Commissioning Pilots had been the subject of a scrutiny workshop for OSC on 7 December as reported back to the Commission on 14 December. It had been a long session that dealt with all three subjects; Drug-related deaths, Domestic Violence and Alcohol-related Harm; on the draft needs assessments and service and costs mapping information.

61.2 Separate workshops were now being planned for three dates to be confirmed in March. The workshops would look at the proposed high-level outcomes for the City and the commissioning recommendations which would be challenging.

61.3 Asked how the budget position would affect the commissioning recommendations, the Commissioner said that the needs analysis indicated that reconfiguring services towards an emphasis on early intervention would not necessarily need new resource allocation. For example the skills of the City’s workforce, be they Council staff or Health, Police and Probation Service, were key in identifying and responding appropriately to service users.

61.4 Lead Commissioners were in discussions regarding the service areas where additional resources may be required.

61.5 RESOLVED That the update be noted.

To follow

51.1 The Head of Scrutiny referred to the notes of the 7 December OSC workshop on the three intelligent commissioning pilots; Drug-Related Deaths, Alcohol-Related Harm and Domestic Violence. Participants had previously received detailed needs assessment reports on each of the three areas, and copies of the presentation had been circulated to members who had been unable to attend.  A  second workshop would be arranged in the new year.

51.2 Comments would feed into these pilots and also into the needs assessment and service design process. Feedback would help shape scrutiny input into future commissioning cycles.

51.3 Commenting on the IC workshop Members said the technical information on the three needs assessments was very useful. However it was felt that there was too little time to read all the detailed information provided and that a précis would have helped. Clarification on the process and structure of the commissioning cycle, a look at some lessons learned, and background to scrutiny input would have been appreciated by some.

51.4 More time to ask questions during presentations would have been preferred and to this end it was agreed in future to request separate workshops for each subject.

51.5 Difficulties in obtaining data was noted and the Chairman said that the time taken to produce the needs assessments – in this case more than three months - should be taken into account for other areas of intelligent commissioning.

51.6         RESOLVED: (1) that Members’ experience from the workshop be used to inform the current pilots and future intelligent commissioning processes.

(2) That a second workshop on the pilot areas be arranged for the New Year.