Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillors Holdich and Swift.

At this point Members must declare whether they have a disclosable pecuniary interest, or other interest, in any of the items on the agenda, unless it is already entered in the register of members’ interests or is a “pending notification “ that has been disclosed to the Solicitor to the Council.

Members must also declare if they are subject to their party group whip in relation to any items under consideration.

            There were no declarations of interest.

          The minutes of the meeting held on 18 April 2013 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

            The Committee received areport from the Director of Adult Social Care on the appointment requirements for the temporary acting Assistant Director – Care Services Delivery.  The report advised Members that due to the recent appointment of the statutory role of Director of Adult Social Care on a temporary basis, there was a vacancy within the current management structure for the role of Assistant Director – Adult Services Delivery. 

            The report requested that the Committee appoint to the post of Acting Assistant Director – Care Services Delivery on a temporary basis, following the temporary appointment of the substantive post holder as Director of Adult Social Care. 

The Committee was advised that the candidate, Ms Debbie McQuade, was currently a Head of Service within Adult Social Care and was an experienced manager.  Debbie had worked at a senior level in Adult Social Care and Health in Peterborough for 12 years.  The proposal for an 'acting up' role served three distinct purposes:

·         Continuity of management at a time of major transformation;

·         A development opportunity for a permanent member of staff; and

·         A cost effective solution at a time of financial constraints.

          Ms Debbie McQuade responded to comments and questions raised by Members.  In summary responses included:

·      The candidate’s past experiences of interaction with Members had involved responding to concerns they had raised regarding the provision of homecare for the elderly.  On one case where a Member had recently raised issues regarding healthcare in the community, Ms McQuade had sent a referral to the Red Cross Service for the provision of support. This had resulted in an improvement to the patients quality of life;

·      The main challenges for Care Services going forward were to meet performance figures and to ensure that regular safeguarding assessments were completed in a timely manner;

·      The recent transformation of Adult Social Care (ASC) had provided an additional challenge and work was underway to engage with staff to encourage their involvement in contributing to the vision for Adult Health Care Service delivery;

·      Further development of how ASC could provide effective support in a diverse community was to be explored, with the aim being to introduce improvements over communication issues for patients or service users where there had been language barriers;

·      If successfully appointed to the temporary role of Acting Assistant Director – Care Services Delivery, Ms McQuade intended to adopt the same approach which she had used to improve waiting times for the Peterborough City Hospital Discharge Team, which to date had not experienced a single delay; 

·      Targets set for waiting times for assessments had been achieved to a national standard; and

·      Current ASC client care plans were being delivered on target with the provision of additional support from other agencies. In addition, there were plans to develop bespoke training in order to achieve improvements for ASC client support plans.

          RESOLVED:

The Employment Committee agreed to appoint Ms Debbie McQuade as Acting Assistant Director - Care Services Delivery, on a temporary basis.

          Reasons for the decision:

Recruitment  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.