Foreword
This year has been a busy year for Overview and Scrutiny, continuing to respond to the issues arising from Covid-19 and the cost of living crisis as well working with our communities and partners to make improvements in respect of health scrutiny through the creation of the Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board.
We continued to take a leading role in the Leader and Cabinet’s Budget development for 2022/2023 and I am pleased that most of our recommendations informed the final budget proposals. In addition to the budget, the Board has investigated several issues and I believe has made a notable difference in some of the key decisions made by the Cabinet, especially those around children and young people and domestic abuse and sexual violence.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has played a part in contributing towards the work of the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Boards, Sub-Boards and Panels. Overview and Scrutiny, the Cabinet and our key partners in Health, the voluntary sector and Police have continued to work together to try to make a positive difference for the people of Torbay.
This report gives details of the work which has been undertaken by Overview and Scrutiny over the course of the 2022/2023 Municipal Year.
Councillor Maggi Douglas-Dunbar
Overview and Scrutiny Co-ordinator
1. Key information about Overview and Scrutiny
The operation of overview and scrutiny
Councillor Douglas-Dunbar has been the Overview and Scrutiny Co-ordinator since May 2021. She is supported by Scrutiny Lead Members:
- Councillor Bye – Children’s Services (and Vice-Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Board);
- Councillor Johns – Health and Adult Services;
- Councillors Foster and Barrand – Community and Corporate Services; and
- Councillor Kennedy – Place.
The Overview and Scrutiny Board meets monthly with task and finish Panels created to consider topics in greater detail. The Overview and Scrutiny Board comprised of Councillors Atiya-Alla, Barnby, Barrand, Brown, Bye, Douglas-Dunbar, Foster, Johns, Kennedy and Loxton.
The Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board (a Sub-Committee of the main Board) was established in May 2022 to provide greater focus on issues in relation to adult social care and health and fulfils the statutory health overview and scrutiny function and normally meets monthly. This Board was Chaired by Councillor Johns and comprised of Councillors Barnby (Vice-Chairwoman), Douglas-Dunbar, Foster, Loxton and O’Dwyer. Representatives from Healthwatch Torbay and the Voluntary Sector Network were appointed as non-voting co-opted members on the Board to help provide independent expert advice.
Residents and stakeholders can get involved by:
- Attending public meetings;
- Giving evidence to one of the Panels, Boards/Sub-Boards; and
- Sending in comments about a review.
Scrutiny’s Role
To make recommendations to the Cabinet, Council or key partners in accordance with following principles:
- Focusing on the issues which matter.
- Policy Development is of equal importance to “holding to account”.
- The Forward Plan is the key tool for managing the decision making process.
- The relationship between overview and scrutiny and the Cabinet should seek to complement one another.
- All Councillors should have the opportunity to help shape policy decisions at an early stage.
Meetings:
- Are open to the public to attend.
- Typically last 2-3 hours.
- Meet regularly (during the daytime and evenings).
- Have a formal structure, but are run in an accessible way.
- Papers are published on the Council’s website.
2. Snapshot of scrutiny development in 2022/2023
Focusing on the issues which matter
The Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board has undertaken the statutory health scrutiny duty (on behalf of the main Board) providing oversight of health services in Torbay and clinical services across the peninsula and has also taking part in masterclass sessions run by Devon County Council. It has held our health partners to account including South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, One Devon and NHS England for delivery of services to the residents of Torbay.
The Board continued to receive regular reports on the Council’s revenue and capital budgets. It has closely monitored and challenged the performance and outcomes for children holding the Cabinet and our key partners to account through the Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board.
Equal importance placed on policy development
The Overview and Scrutiny Board and its Sub-Boards provided feedback during the development of the following Council’s key Policy Framework Documents.
- Destination Management Plan 2022-2027;
- Draft Torbay Economic Growth Strategy 2022-2030;
- Draft Housing Strategy;
- Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Strategy;
- Draft Housing Strategy; and
- Revised Corporate Parenting Strategy.
Complementing the work of the Cabinet
The Overview and Scrutiny Board continue to seek to complement the work of the Cabinet, with strategic meetings held between the Overview and Scrutiny Co-ordinator, Overview and Scrutiny Board Vice-Chairman and the Leader of the Council.
Pre-Briefings and Work Planning
Monthly briefings have enabled better member engagement and more focussed debate at Board meetings, developing key lines of questioning and exploring upcoming items to ensure relevant items are considered at the right time with key attendees invited to contribute towards discussions. The Forward Plan was also used as a tool to identify key issues for consideration by the Board.
Key:
30 Overview and Scrutiny Board and Panel meetings held
25 Topics considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Board
23 Topics considered by the Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Board
17 Topics considered by the Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board
4. Snapshot of some of the Key Achievements 2022/2023
Highways Review
Following a review of the Cabinet’s Revenue and Capital Plan Budgets for 2022/2023 via the Priorities and Resources Review Panel, which resulted in additional funding being allocated for highways, the Board agreed that a key priority area for overview and scrutiny was:
- To understand the current situation on how highways schemes are prioritised and funded and explore the options available for future highways improvements.
- To explore how we can work with our key partners and utilities on major highways projects (such as Network Rail and BT Openreach).
The Overview and Scrutiny Board established a Highways Task and Finish Group on 27 January 2022. The Panel worked with key officers from the Council’s Senior Leadership Team, Planning and Highways Teams, as well as receiving valued contributions from members of the public. The Panel heard evidence from the Leader of the Council, Cabinet Members for Infrastructure, Environment and Culture and Corporate and Community Services as well as representatives from Network Rail, BT Openreach, Torquay Chamber of Trade and Commerce, Cockington, Chelston, Livermead Community Partnership, the Police and Vision Zero South West regarding the replacement of the railway bridge on Torquay Road and the road works at Torwood Street.
The review has resulted in:
- Improved and regular communications and signage with Councillors, the community and members of the public and between SWISCo and contractors/Communications Team on highways scheme and roadworks.
- Identification of Ward Councillors and Community Partnerships as the first point of contact for sharing information with communities.
- The Leader of the Council writing to and meeting Network Rail regularly regarding the delays in completing the railway bridge on Torquay Road.
- Improved governance around budget allocations and expectations for delivery by SWISCo on highways works.
- Request for a review of the Controlled Parking Zone Policy alongside the Council’s Parking Strategy to ensure it is fit for purpose.
- Review of structure of parking Team to increase enforcement capacity.
- Dual tracking to be consider for Queensway road safety scheme at the same time as the Fore Street Barton scheme.
- Close working with the Director of Pride in Place and Vision Zero South West.
- Road safety campaign launched in September 2022.
- Improved communication from the Police on Community Speed Watch and road safety initiatives.
The full report of the Highways Review and the Cabinet response
Continued to Support Children’s Services Improvement Journey
The Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board has had a busy year working with and holding to account the Chief Executive, Director of Children’s Services and Cabinet Member for Children’s Services across a wide range of topics. The Sub-Board is supported by the following key co-opted members:
- Tatiana Wilson/Claire Platt, Church of England Diocese;
- Laura Colman, Primary Parent Governor;
- Jo Morrell, Torbay Youth Trust;
- Frank Tsyplek, Torbay Youth Trust Junior Participation Worker (Care Experienced);
- Mike Cook, Imagine This Partnership Board; and
- Edward Wright, Devon and Cornwall Police.
The Sub-Board has regularly monitored the work of the Children’s Continuous Improvement Board which had been expanded to ensure a joined up and partnership approach to supporting children and young people, following the change of rating of Children’s Services to ‘Good’ in May 2022 from Ofsted. They continued to challenge and seek assurance that appropriate and timely action was being taken to address areas of concern e.g. child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) remaining a challenge in Torbay as well as at a national level. Members undertook a detailed look at CAMHS and sought to promote wider the support available to help children and young people with their emotional and mental health needs.
The Sub-Board continued to recognise the key role that all Members had as Corporate Parents and had regard to this when reviewing the revised Corporate Parenting Strategy which had an overall objective to ensure that all children, young people and care experienced young people and adults are safe, happy and healthy in order that they can fulfil their full potential. Key to the Strategy was ensuring the voice of the child and young person and their family was taken into account when designing and delivering services.
Exploitation, elected home education and exclusions were three key areas of concern that were regularly considered and actions challenged by the Sub-Board to ensure a multi-agency approach to tackling these issues. The Sub-Board will continue to receive regular updates on these areas to ensure action is being taken in a timely manner.
The Sub-Board also reviewed the Youth Justice Plan and Youth Justice Team (former Youth Offending Team) to ensure that a suitable and sufficient partnership approach was being taken, with support from the voluntary and community sector to reduce the number of young people from offending or reoffending.
The Sub-Board also played a fundamental part in reviewing and challenging the Torbay Local Area Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Joint Inspection Written Statement of Action to ensure a timely response was being put into action to the issues identified within the Joint Area Inspection for SEND.
Scrutiny of Adult Social Care and Health
The Adult Social Care and Heath Sub-Board have spent the last 12 months getting up to speed and understanding the complexities of adult social care and health. This included the new Care Quality Commission Regulation of local authority functions relating to Adult Social Care with a similar inspection regime to Children’s Services which is carried out by Ofsted. As well as the new Integrated Care Organisation and Board arrangements which had come into force on a regional basis. In considering the current arrangements for adult social care the Sub-Board requested key officers to look at the southern area overall to explore vacant capacity for respite beds and how Torbay Council could work with Devon County Council and other partners to make best use of scarce resources.
The Sub Board held Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust to account for the delivery of services at Torbay Hospital through considering the Care Quality Commission (CQC) Inspection Report and sought updates on the discharge improvement programme and recommended that statistics covering the issues raised by the CQC be included within the dashboard of compliments and complaints to aid with their future monitoring. They also considered the draft Quality Account for 2021/2022 for Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust which set out the quality of services and improvements at Torbay Hospital.
The Sub-Board undertook a detailed review of dentistry provision within Torbay which explored the following areas:
- How was dentistry funded and how were the units of dental activity (UDA) calculated which meant that dentists were paid different amounts across the country.
- When and how could contracts be changed.
- What work was being done to encourage children to visit the dentist.
- There were other benefits of visiting the dentist including overall oral health and spotting other disease e.g. cancer, what was being done in the community to encourage people to have better oral health and raise awareness of potential early warning signs of other health issues.
- There were a lot of pilots being carried out, how soon could they be rolled out in Torbay and what more could be done sooner to improve access to dentists and improve oral health.
- How soon was it expected that numbers of children visiting dentists would be back to pre-pandemic levels.
- What follow up action was being taken on the pilots e.g. the teeth brushing in schools to ensure that parents also follow this up with teeth brushing before bed and that support in school would not result in less support at home.
- What was being done to improve waiting times for adults and vulnerable children.
- What could be done to encourage more people into dentistry (e.g. improved working conditions, access to housing etc.) and to use dentistry staff for other roles to enable more patients to be seen.
- Dentists were expected to meet 96% target otherwise funding was clawed back, how does this process work and what was the impact.
- Yorkshire has dental access centres in their town centres was this something that could be looked at for Torbay.
- What work was being done to focus support on areas of deprivation and how this linked to schools (it was suggested that free school meals may be a good indicator to use to identify suitable children and families to support).
- How can we ensure that money clawed back from dentists in Torbay was invested in preventative and good oral health for people in Torbay.
- Were vaping and fizzy drinks considered bad for oral health.
- How were we monitoring the success of the dental reform programme.
Lincoln Sargeant (Director of Public Health, Mark Richards (Public Health Specialist), Wendy Okurut (Brixham Town Council) and Pat Harris (Healthwatch) also took part in the discussions and debate.
The Sub-Board agreed that NHS England/the Integrated Care Partnership be requested to provide an annual update to the Torbay Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board on improvements in dental access and planned oral health improvement initiatives, including key outputs and key performance indicators via an accessible dashboard (the content of which to be agreed with the Director of Public Health).
The Sub-Board also reviewed the One Devon Partnership Integrated Care Strategy which set out the direction for the system on how NHS commissioners, local authorities, providers and other partners could delivery a more joined up, preventative and person centred care for the whole of the population across the course of their life.
Members also reviewed the provision of domiciliary care and unpaid carers and the valued work provided to vulnerable adults across Torbay and supported the direction of travel to improve these valued areas of care and support.
5. Topic List
Overview and Scrutiny Board
- Turning the Tide on Poverty
- Destination Management Plan 2022-2027 (Policy Framework)
- Climate Change Emergency Update
- Budget Monitoring Outturn 2021/2022
- Draft Torbay Economic Growth Strategy 2022-2030 (Policy Framework)
- Grant Funded Programmes
- Budget Monitoring Quarter 1 2022/2023
- Highways Review Report of the Highways Review Panel
- Delivery of Capital Projects
- 2022/2023 Budget Pressures Review Report of 2022/2023 Budget Review Panel
- Capital Projects Additional Funding
- Draft Housing Strategy – Initial Draft (Policy Framework) and Report of Torbay’s Housing Crisis Review Panel
- Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Strategy (Policy Framework)
- Budget Monitoring Quarter 2 2022/2023 – Initial Review
- Safer Communities Torbay – Community Safety Partnership Review
- Budget Monitoring Quarter 2 2022/2023 – Updated Report
- Climate Change Emergency Update
- Delivery of Capital Projects
- Review of Council Investments
- Draft Housing Strategy and Public Consultation (Policy Framework)
- Revenue and Capital Budget 2023/2024 Report of the Overview and Scrutiny Board (Recommendations arising from the Priorities and Resources Review Panel 2023/2024)
- Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Local Area Strategy
- Torbay Place Leadership Board and the Torbay Story
- Budget Monitoring Quarter 3 2022/2023
- Levelling Up Round 2 Outcome
Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board
- Ofsted Feedback
- Youth Justice Plan
- Update on recruitment campaign for child minders
- Exclusions update
- Children’s Continuous Improvement Board Update – July
- Update on review of Youth Justice Team (formerly Youth Offending Team)
- Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board Action Tracker – July
- Torbay Local Area Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Joint Inspection Written Statement of Action Update
- Childcare Duty Sufficiency Report
- Update on Five Child Friendly Task and Finish Groups
- Exploitation Update
- Update on Elected Home Education
- Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board Action Tracker – November
- Review of the Learning Academy
- Virtual School Annual Report 2021/2022
- Revised Corporate Parenting Strategy (Policy Framework)
- Youth Justice Plan Update – January
- Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board Action Tracker – January
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS)
- Children’s Services Self Assessment
- Torbay Local Area Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Joint Inspection Written Statement of Action Update
- Young People – Housing Strand Update
- Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board Action Tracker – March
Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board
- Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust – Torbay Hospital Care Quality Commission Inspection Report
- Adult Social Care Governance Changes
- Terms of Reference and Membership of the Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board
- Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board Work Programme 2022/2023
- Wait times for Adult Social Care Assessments and Care
- Suicide Prevention in Torbay
- GP Strategy for Devon
- Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust Quality Account 2021/2022
- Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board Action Tracker - October
- Review of Dentistry Provision in Torbay
- One Devon Partnership Integrated Care Strategy
- Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board Action Tracker - November
- Review of Domiciliary Care
- Review of unpaid carers
- Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board Action Tracker - January
- Care Quality Commission Regulation of local authority functions relating to adult social care
- Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board Action Tracker – February
Panels
- Review of Council Redesign Programme and Accessibility
- Review of Highways
- Torbay’s Housing Crisis Review Pane continued to meet to monitor the implementation of the recommendations arising from its review and to review the draft Housing Strategy
- 2022/2023 Budget Pressure Review Panel
- Priorities and Resources Review Panel
6. Current and Future Work Programme
The Overview and Scrutiny work programme needs to be flexible in order to address any issues that arise throughout the Municipal Year. A number of new topics were added to the programme during the year and the timing of some of the items was varied to enable key items to be considered in a timely manner.
The future Work Programmes will be agreed by the Overview and Scrutiny Board and Sub-Boards following the Local Government Elections in May 2023.
Overview and Scrutiny will continue with its flexible approach to work programming to ensure that it is able to react to issues as they arise and in respect of Review Groups, which will be subject to available staff resources.
The different ways of working that have now been established as a result of Covid-19 have provided greater accessibility to Overview and Scrutiny, not only in terms of potential public engagement, but by also making it easier for expert speakers to participate as geography is no longer an issue or a barrier in that respect.
7. Call-in of decisions
The call-in process is one of the mechanisms which can be used to hold the Cabinet to account.
The purpose of call-in is to examine the decisions reached by the Cabinet (or other decision makers) and the reasoning behind those decisions. The process enables further public debate to be held on the subject. The Overview and Scrutiny Board can then consider whether the decision was appropriate and make recommendations accordingly.
There were no call-ins during 2022/2023.
8. Community involvement
The Overview and Scrutiny Boards and Panels engage with a wide selection of groups, organisations and individuals. We welcome the opportunity to hear from members of the public at our meetings and your input is important in understanding the concerns and needs from our communities. To support this approach and in addition to the statutory education co-opted members the Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board has appointed a number of non-voting co-opted members to provide expert advice, representing the following:
- Devon and Cornwall Police;
- Torbay Youth Trust;
- Care experienced young person; and
- Imagine This Partnership Board.
Representatives from Healthwatch Torbay and the Voluntary Sector Network were also appointed as non-voting co-opted members on the Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board to help provide independent expert advice.
How to get involved in overview and scrutiny
- Attend meetings – our scrutiny meetings are open to the public and you are welcome to come along and listen to the debate and discussion. Please note that reports may be considered in private if they contain confidential information.
- Ask a question or make a point – if you would like to make a representation at a meeting, please email support@torbay.gov.uk at least two days before the meeting so that we can let the Chairman know in advance. It is helpful to know what you would like to raise in order for it to be considered at the appropriate time during the discussions.
- Request a review – if there is something you think scrutiny could look at, then let us know via support@torbay.gov.uk
- Consultation and participation – you could be asked for your views on an issue or be invited to provide specialist knowledge you might have by being a witness in a scrutiny review.
Contact Us
Overview and Scrutiny
Torbay Council
Town Hall
Torquay
TQ1 3DR