Councillor S Little presented the report and stated that she had great pleasure in doing so and that she would be reporting separately on Adult Social Care first and then Children’s Social Care.

Councillor S Little summarised the extremely complex challenges being faced by Adult Social Care:

•           An aging population with people living for more years.

•           A greater number of years in poorer health.

•           An increase in complexity of cases.

•           An insufficient capacity within the NHS.

•           A health and care system had been established to react rather than prevent.

•           The difficulty in recruitment and the retention of staff.

A Transformation Programme called “Living Well in Thurrock” had been established to use the resources available to the best effect and the programme would consist of the following three elements:

•           Stronger Communities

•           Built Environment

•           Adult Social Care and Health Infrastructure

Councillor S Little referred to the two domiciliary care services that had been brought back in-house that had created a number of problems and had led to an extremely stretched in-house service.

Councillor S Little stated her passion for Children’s Services having been a member on Corporate Parenting Committee and a member on the Fostering Panel.

Councillor S Little summarised the key areas of concern:

•           The instability of social care workforce with a proportion of agency staff.

•           The inconsistent service for looked after children.

•           The need to do more to increase the number of local in-house foster carers.

•           The Management oversight to be improved.

•           The organisation’s use of management information and quality assurance had been poor and required improvement.

Councillor S Little then summarised the key areas of strength:

•           That Child Sexual Exploitation had been well understood and addressed across the service.

•           The effective cross party political scrutiny.

•           The reduction in the number of days taken for children to be placed for adoption.

•           The support and intervention for teenagers.

•           The work on the multi-agency safeguarding hub.

•           The number of unaccompanied asylum children had been reduced.

Councillor Snell thanked Councillor S Little for the report and thanked Officers for the fantastic work that had been undertaken to keep these services going.

Councillor Snell stated that the report appeared to have skipped over the pressures and difficulties that Adult Social Care was currently facing and felt that this crisis was due to the Conservative Party’s actions and asked that Councillor S Little writes to her MPs. He also suggested that 5 per cent of the foreign aid budget be given back to help the residents of this borough.

Councillor S Little stated that there had been concerns over critical care when she had taken over as Portfolio Holder but confirmed that this had been overcome and that the budget had been managed far better and that the service was where they wanted it. Councillor S Little would be happy to write to her MPs but stated that the 2 per cent precept had already been agreed and that maybe the Government was a victim of their own success because since 2010, when the Conservatives had taken power, people were living longer.

Councillor V Holloway stated that she would have liked to have seen an update on Public Health in the report and asked Councillor S Little what she thought the key items of Public Health were. Councillor S Little stated that if Councillor V Holloway had attended the last Full Council she would have heard Councillor Halden’s Portfolio Holder report which covered this item.

Councillor Duffin asked if the Government would match the social care funding with the wage increase announced last week. Councillor S Little replied that was really a question for Government and that the 2 per cent precept had already been agreed.

Councillor Okunade asked the Portfolio Holder would the Government proposal for social care reform lead to more children being at risk, to which Councillor S Little stated no.

Councillor B Rice stated the service was in crisis and asked the Portfolio Holder to explain to members and residents how she intended to resolve this crisis. Councillor S Little stated that she was satisfied with timings of patients coming out of hospital and that the domiciliary care was in place.

Councillor S Little stated that the next tendering process for new domiciliary care would ensure that the right services were offered.

At 7.59pm the Mayor requested that standing orders be suspended to provide time to hear and debate the remaining questions from members. Members voted in favour of this.

Councillor Pothecary thanked Councillor S Little for the report and stated that the text of the report was different to what was being discussed tonight and that the report was very gloomy and down beat. Councillor Pothecary asked the Portfolio Holder whether cuts would be made to residents on mental health care packages and social care charges going up for older people. Councillor Little stated that mental health care checks would be undertaken when children came into care. Councillor S Little stated that discussions had taken place with officers, the budget had been looked at and that they would not put residents’ lives at risk.

Councillor Spillman stated that the report was grim and was this not the time for the Council to publicly announce that it could not do what was needed to be done with the amount of money available. Councillor S Little stated that the Council was managing and was coping with the budget.

Councillor Gerrish stated that if the Portfolio Holder was coping with the budget how much would she likely to be overspent on the budget this year and would this be based on not having sufficient funding or should it be perceived that the service was being poorly run. Councillor S Little stated the service was not being poorly run and had been impressed with the work that officers do. Councillor S Little stated that the budget was £100,000 overspent which was due to two very complex cases that required significant funding.

Councillor J Kent paid tribute to all the members of staff who work in Adult and Children’s Social Care who worked in some very difficult situations to look after the elderly, vulnerable and looked after children.  Councillor J Kent asked the Portfolio Holder when she would be stepping up to the plate and start to put in place some solutions to make sure that the crisis did not turn into an absolute disaster. Councillor S Little stated as a responsible person for this portfolio she would ensure that nobody would be put at risk and emphasised that the report was transparent to what was actually happening.